It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Robert Hanhart (1925–2025), five days after his 100th birthday. 

Robert Hanhart was born in St. Gallen, Switzerland in 1925. He first studied classical philology and history at the University of Basel, from which he obtained a doctorate in 1954. He became director of the Septuaginta-Unternehmen at the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen in 1961 and in the following year received a doctorate in theology from the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. From 1977 until his retirement in 1990 he was professor of Old Testament at Göttingen, during which time he also served as the director of the Septuaginta-Unternehmen until 1993.  

Hanhart is best remembered among biblical scholars for his critical editions of books of the Septuagint in the Göttingen Septuaginta series. After completing the edition of 2 Maccabees in 1959, he produced an edition of Greek Esther as his habilitationschrift (1966) and then went on to publish editions of 1–2 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, Judith, Tobit, and 2 Chronicles, along with volumes on the text of 2–3 Maccabees, Tobit, and 2 Esdras, a volume of essays entitled Studien zur Septuaginta und zum hellenistischen Judentum (1999), and a revision of Rahlfs’ Handausgabe in 2006. 

A festschrift in honor of Hanhart’s 65th birthday was published in 1990 (Studien zur Septuaginta, Robert Hanhart zu Ehren: aus Anlass seines 65. Geburtstages) and a second festschrift celebrating the centennial of his birth will be published in September 2025 entitled Das Erbe der Göttinger Septuaginta: Festschrift aus Anlass des 100. Geburtstages von Robert Hanhart (*1925), ed. Felix Albrecht and Reinhard Gregor Kratz. Hanhart’s legacy lives on in the Robert Hanhart Foundation (“Robert Hanhart-Stiftung zur Förderung der Septuaginta-Forschung”), under whose auspices the work on the remaining editions of the Göttingen Septuaginta will be conducted.