Eta Linnemann studied Protestant theology in Marburg, Tübingen and Göttingen from October 1948 to July 1953. In August 1953 she presented at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen for the First State Examination, and in August 1957, the Second State Examination. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover commissioned Linnemann to write interpretations of biblical texts for religious education. From this work arose her dissertation on the parables of Jesus - Gleichnisse Jesu, Einführung und Auslegung - with which she was promoted to a doctor of theologysumma cum laude in July 1961 at the Church University Berlin-Zehlendorf. Between 1961 and 1966 she taught at the seminar for church service in Berlin-Zehlendorf, in 1967 she was appointed as Visiting Professor at Braunschweig University of Technology. In February 1970, Eta Linnemann worked in Marburg with Rudolf Bultmann and Ernst Fuchs on studies on the Passion story. On 10 August 1971, she was awarded an honorary professorship of New Testament at the Theological Faculty of the Philipps-University Marburg. The following year, the Braunschweig University of Technology appointed her to the chair of theology and methodology of religious education. Linnemann was a member of the international society Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas. Linnemann caused a stir in 1978 when, due to a conversion experience in November 1977 according to her own statement, she renounced the historical-critical method, and asked readers to destroy her previous publications. From 1983, at the age of 60, she departed Germany for Indonesia to train pastors at the Theological University of the Indonesian Mission community in Batu. In her book "What is credible - the Bible or the Bible criticism" Linnemann claimed in 2007, citing an unnamed ear witness, that Rudolf Bultmann on his death bed had recanted his critical views. A real proof of that assertion, however, so far remains only an echo in Bultmann's research. Eta Linnemann lived her last years in the Loga district of Leer.
Influence
Linnemann rejected Markan priority and favored the Independence View of the synoptic gospels. One of Linnemann's views to find support among conservative English speaking scholarship, notably F. David Farnell, was her rejection of a Q for the synoptic Gospels in favour of an explanation following the Jewish requirement of Deuteronomy 19:15 that "on the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed".
