FROM BIBLICAL AND GREEK ROOTS TO MODERN HUMAN RIGHTS: THE COURSES AND SCHOLARSHIP OF PROFESSOR ECKART OTTO AT LUDWIG MAXIMILIAN UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH
 |
Professor Emeritus of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich investigates the historical formation of natural law, constitutionalism, legal legitimacy, and human rights
Professor Eckart Otto, one of the most important contemporary scholars of biblical law, the legal history of the Ancient Near East, Deuteronomy, and the relationships among religion, law, ethics, and political philosophy, will teach a course devoted to the history of natural and constitutional law during the 2026/2027 winter semester.
The course will be offered at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich — LMU, in Munich, Germany, and will continue the course taught during the 2025/2026 winter semester, in which Plato, Aristotle, the Bible, law, justice, and the ethical formation of the modern constitutional state were studied.
The sequence of the two courses presents a broad historical and intellectual journey. It begins with Greek philosophy and the legal and religious traditions of the Hebrew Bible, passes through the formation of modern natural law, and reaches contemporary debates on democracy, sovereignty, legitimacy, constitutionalism, and human rights.
1. The 2026/2027 Winter Semester Course
The course announced for the 2026/2027 winter semester is entitled:
The History of Natural and Constitutional Law from Antiquity to the Present — Part II: From Thomas Hobbes to Jürgen Habermas
In German:
Die Geschichte des Natur- und Verfassungsrechts von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Teil II: Von Thomas Hobbes bis zu Jürgen Habermas
The course will begin on October 16, 2026, and will be taught on Fridays, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., in the main building of LMU, Lecture Hall A 015.
According to the official announcement:
The lecture presents the biblical and Greek-philosophical roots of modern human rights as part of natural and constitutional law, in dialogue with the most recent discussions in legal scholarship and philosophy.
The purpose of the course is not merely to narrate the history of legal ideas chronologically. It seeks to demonstrate that modern human rights, constitutionalism, and legal limits on political power did not arise from a single historical source.
These concepts were formed through a long dialogue among:
- Greek political philosophy;
- biblical law and ethics;
- canon law;
- theories of natural law;
- modern political philosophy;
- theories of sovereignty;
- legal positivism;
- critical theory;
- democratic constitutionalism;
- and discourse theories of law.
The bibliography selected by Professor Otto includes works by Horst Dreier, Jürgen Habermas, Ulrich Haltern, Tine Stein, Robert Yelle, and Eckart Otto himself.
2. Human Rights as the Sacred Core of Modern Constitutionalism
Among the central texts of the new course is Eckart Otto’s article:
Die Menschenrechte als sakraler Kern im neuzeitlichen Verfassungsrecht. Biblische und kanonistische Impulse in der rechtsphilosophischen Forschung zum neuzeitlichen Natur- und Verfassungsrecht
In English:
Human Rights as the Sacred Core of Modern Constitutional Law: Biblical and Canonistic Impulses in Legal-Philosophical Research on Modern Natural and Constitutional Law
The article was published in volume 33, in 2026, of the Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte, on pages 1–59.
The course announcement itself states that the text may be consulted online through Eckart Otto’s Academia.edu profile.
The expression “sacred core” should not be understood merely as a religious norm imposed by the state. It points to the recognition that certain values — particularly human dignity and fundamental rights — occupy a superior and non-disposable legal position and should not be subject to the temporary will of governments, political majorities, or economic interests.
Within this framework, Otto’s study investigates biblical and canonistic contributions to the formation of modern theories of natural law, human rights, and constitutionalism.
The central question is profound:
What foundations make it possible to affirm that certain rights belong to the human person and cannot legitimately be abolished by the state?
3. Part I: Plato, Aristotle, the Bible, Law, and Justice
The ancient foundations of this intellectual journey were presented during the 2025/2026 winter semester through the course:
Plato, Aristotle, and the Bible: Law and Ethos in Antiquity and in the Modern Constitutional State
In German:
Platon, Aristoteles und die Bibel. Recht und Ethos in der Antike und im modernen Rechtsstaat
The course was taught on Fridays, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., in the main building of LMU, Lecture Hall F 007.
Its program examined the relationship between law and justice, as well as the possibilities and limits of natural law in ancient philosophy, particularly in Plato and Aristotle, and in the Hebrew Bible.
The analysis also extended to modern philosophy and legal theories of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
The complete program of the 2025/2026 course is available on Academia.edu.
The official announcement of the 2025/2026 course may also be consulted.
The sequence between the two semesters is intellectually coherent.
Part I — Ancient Foundations
- Plato;
- Aristotle;
- the Hebrew Bible;
- natural law;
- ethics;
- justice;
- legitimacy of power;
- moral and legal formation of the state.
Part II — Modern and Contemporary Development
- Thomas Hobbes;
- sovereignty;
- modern natural law;
- constitutionalism;
- legal positivism;
- human rights;
- critical theory;
- Jürgen Habermas;
- democratic legitimacy;
- discourse theory of law.
Although the 2026/2027 course is called “Part II,” the announcement does not state that formal completion of Part I is a mandatory prerequisite.
Part I nevertheless provides an important historical and conceptual basis for understanding the later development.
4. Location
The course will be taught in person in the main building of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich:
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1
80539 Munich
Germany
The room designated for the 2026/2027 course is:
Hauptgebäude, Hörsaal A 015
Main Building, Lecture Hall A 015.
5. Attendance as a Guest Student
The course announcement does not establish a separate individual fee. It is a regular LMU university course.
People who are not regularly enrolled students may apply for admission as Gaststudierende, that is, guest students or auditors.
LMU links the guest-student fee to the total number of weekly course hours selected. Because Eckart Otto’s course consists of two hours per week, it falls, when taken alone, within the first fee bracket.
Enrollment as a guest student is not equivalent to enrollment in an undergraduate or graduate degree program and, as a rule, does not confer the right to take examinations or earn academic credits.
The rules, forms, deadlines, and applicable fees should be confirmed directly on the official LMU page for guest students.
6. Who Is Professor Eckart Otto?
Prof. em. Dr. Dr. h.c. Eckart Otto, born in 1944, is Professor Emeritus at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and Honorary Professor at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
He studied Protestant Theology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies. He received his doctorate and his academic habilitation in Old Testament Theology from the University of Hamburg in 1973 and 1975, respectively.
Between 1976 and 1986, he participated in archaeological excavations in Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. Between 1978 and 1979, he served as Deputy Director of the German Archaeological Institute in Jerusalem.
His university career included service as:
- Associate Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Archaeology at the University of Hamburg;
- Full Professor of Hebrew Bible Studies at the University of Osnabrück;
- Full Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Archaeology at the University of Mainz;
- holder of the Chair of Old Testament II at the Faculty of Protestant Theology of LMU Munich.
In 2009, he formally retired as Dean of the Faculty of Protestant Theology, but continued to teach regularly at LMU, the Munich School of Philosophy, and the University of Pretoria.
In 1983, he was ordained as an honorary Lutheran pastor.
In 2007, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from the University of Pretoria.
He is also associated with important academic institutions, including:
- European Academy of Sciences and Arts;
- Akademie gemeinnütziger Wissenschaften zu Erfurt;
- Old Testament Society of Southern Africa;
- Joachim-Jungius-Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften.
Eckart Otto’s academic curriculum vitae is available on Academia.edu.
His general Academia.edu profile brings together books, articles, reviews, course programs, lectures, and other academic works.
The profile records dozens of books, hundreds of articles and studies, more than one hundred reviews, and numerous courses and lectures. It also identifies Otto as Professor Emeritus at LMU, Honorary Professor at the University of Pretoria, and a full member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.
7. An Extraordinary Academic Output
By 2025, Eckart Otto’s bibliography recorded 819 books, articles, and reviews, published between 1974 and 2025.
His scholarship covers:
- biblical theology;
- the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament;
- the Pentateuch;
- Deuteronomy;
- ancient philosophy;
- the history of ancient and modern law;
- cuneiform studies;
- religions of the Ancient Near East;
- biblical and modern ethics;
- human rights;
- sociology of religion;
- studies on Max Weber.
Eckart Otto’s bibliography of publications from 1974 to 2025 is available through his academic profile.
Among his most relevant works are:
- Theologische Ethik des Alten Testaments — Theological Ethics of the Old Testament;
- Das Deuteronomium: Politische Theologie und Rechtsreform in Juda und Assyrien — Deuteronomy: Political Theology and Legal Reform in Judah and Assyria;
- Gottes Recht als Menschenrecht — God’s Law as Human Right;
- Mose: Geschichte und Legende — Moses: History and Legend;
- Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch and Hexateuch;
- Krieg und Frieden in der Hebräischen Bibel und im Alten Orient — War and Peace in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East;
- his four-volume commentary on Deuteronomy, published between 2012 and 2017.
In 2005, Otto also published the first critical edition of Max Weber’s Ancient Judaism for the complete edition of Weber’s works organized by the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.
8. Recent Works Available on Academia.edu
8.1. Main Traits of a Legal History in the Hebrew Bible from the Neo-Assyrian to the Persian Period
The work corresponds to a lecture presented at the Center of Judaic and Inter-Religious Studies at Shandong University, China, in November 2025.
The study addresses:
- the functions of law in the Ancient Near East and in the Hebrew Bible;
- the roots of biblical law in the family, local courts, and worship;
- the theological transformation of secular law;
- the relationships among Deuteronomy, the Covenant Code, and Neo-Assyrian legal sources;
- Deuteronomy’s contestation of Neo-Assyrian imperial ideology;
- Deuteronomy in the post-exilic context;
- its relationship with Achaemenid royal ideology;
- Deuteronomy’s contestation of Persian imperial ideology.
Read the work on Academia.edu.
The work demonstrates one of the central lines of Eckart Otto’s scholarship: the Hebrew Bible should not be analyzed as a text isolated from its political and legal context.
Its norms, narratives, and theological formulations interact with empires, legal codes, judicial institutions, and ideologies of power in the Ancient Near East.
8.2. Program of the Course “Plato, Aristotle, and the Bible”
The document contains the program of the course taught at LMU during the 2025/2026 winter semester:
Programm der Vorlesung von Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Eckart Otto an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München im Wintersemester 2025/26: Platon, Aristoteles und die Bibel. Recht und Ethos in der Antike und im modernen Rechtsstaat.
In English:
Program of the Lecture by Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Eckart Otto at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich during the 2025/2026 Winter Semester: Plato, Aristotle, and the Bible. Law and Ethos in Antiquity and in the Modern Constitutional State.
Consult the program on Academia.edu.
8.3. Announcement of the Course “Plato, Aristotle, and the Bible”
The document records the formal announcement of the course, including its title, semester, schedule, and location:
Vorlesungsankündigung Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Eckart Otto im Wintersemester 2025/26 an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München: Platon, Aristoteles und die Bibel. Recht und Ethos in der Antike und im modernen Rechtsstaat. Freitag 10.00–12.00 ct. im Hauptgebäude der LMU, Hörsaal F 007.
Consult the announcement on Academia.edu.
8.4. Legality and Legitimacy of Law in Light of Ancient Sources and the Hebrew Bible
The lecture was presented at the international workshop The Political Bible, held at LMU on July 25 and 26, 2025.
Otto analyzes the relationship between justice and positive law in both modern legal theory and the Hebrew Bible.
The central question is whether biblical legal theory can contribute to current debates on the legality and legitimacy of modern positive law.
Read the work on Academia.edu.
The subject is highly relevant today because a norm may be formally valid and nevertheless raise serious questions about its justice, moral legitimacy, or compatibility with human dignity.
8.5. Plato and the Bible: Human Rights as Subject of a Republican Political Theology Beyond the German Tradition of Carl Schmitt
The lecture was presented by Eckart Otto at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in connection with an activity supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, on May 12, 2024.
The file available on Academia.edu contains the program and abstract of the lecture.
Read the work on Academia.edu.
The work critically examines the tradition of Carl Schmitt’s political theology, centered on state sovereignty and on the idea that fundamental concepts of the modern state are secularized forms of theological concepts.
In the interpretation presented by Otto, Schmitt’s conception links state sovereignty to the secularization of the Christian idea of divine omnipotence.
This perspective concentrates political power in the sovereign and emphasizes the sovereign decision in exceptional situations.
Otto contrasts this tradition with a different genealogy of political theology, linked to Jewish sources, Platonic philosophy, and the Hebrew Bible.
According to the lecture abstract, Jürgen Habermas devoted a significant part of his work to criticizing Schmitt’s conception and referred to Jewish formulations of political theology associated particularly with Hermann Cohen and Martin Buber.
Hermann Cohen, in turn, developed his thought through simultaneous engagement with Platonic philosophy and the sources of the Hebrew Bible.
According to Otto, this combination of ancient philosophy and biblical tradition continued in Hannah Arendt’s political theology of human rights.
Arendt’s reflection shifts the center of political theology:
- from absolute sovereignty to human rights;
- from state omnipotence to human dignity;
- from sovereign decision to political participation;
- from concentrated power to republican citizenship;
- from submission to the state to the right to have rights.
Arendt’s expression — the “right to have rights” — is especially relevant in this context.
It demonstrates that the abstract existence of rights is insufficient when human beings are expelled from the political community, deprived of citizenship, or placed outside the effective protection of institutions.
Otto also situates this genealogy within contemporary debates in critical theory, referring to Axel Honneth, Rahel Jaeggi, and Daniel Loick.
These authors revisit, from different perspectives, questions related to recognition, social freedom, forms of life, institutional criticism, and Jewish legal traditions.
The work therefore offers an alternative to the political model founded on unlimited sovereignty.
Instead of a political theology centered on the state as supreme power, Otto proposes the investigation of a republican political theology of human rights, founded on:
- human dignity;
- citizenship;
- political participation;
- public responsibility;
- limitation of power;
- protection of vulnerable persons;
- criticism of authoritarian states;
- the right to resist oppression;
- universality of human rights.
The lecture was also included in the international meeting Human Dignity and Human Rights in Ancient Near East, Israel and Hellas, held online from May 12 to 14, 2024.
The program records Eckart Otto’s presentation on May 12 under the title “Plato and the Bible: Human Right as a Subject of a Republican Political Theology Beyond the German Tradition of Carl Schmitt.”
This work is directly related to the courses later taught by Professor Otto at LMU.
In Part I of the course, Otto examines Plato, Aristotle, the Bible, law, and ethics. In Part II, he investigates the history of natural and constitutional law from Thomas Hobbes to Jürgen Habermas.
The Thessaloniki lecture functions as a bridge between these two stages:
Plato and the Bible → Hermann Cohen and Martin Buber → Hannah Arendt → Jürgen Habermas and Contemporary Critical Theory
This historical line helps explain why human rights may be interpreted not merely as positive norms contained in international instruments, but as the center of a republican conception of state and society.
9. The Contemporary Importance of Eckart Otto’s Work
Eckart Otto’s scholarship occupies a unique position because it brings together fields that are often studied separately:
- theology and law;
- the Bible and constitutionalism;
- ancient history and contemporary democratic crisis;
- positive law and justice;
- sovereignty and the limits of power;
- religion and human rights;
- Greek philosophy and human dignity;
- biblical tradition and resistance to empires.
His research demonstrates that the formation of modern human rights cannot be explained exclusively by the European Enlightenment or by the revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Greek philosophy provided fundamental categories concerning justice, reason, nature, political community, and virtue.
The biblical tradition, in turn, developed religious, moral, and legal mechanisms for limiting power, protecting vulnerable persons, holding rulers accountable, exercising prophetic criticism, and resisting the absolute claims of empires.
Modern constitutionalism reformulated these elements into new categories:
- human dignity;
- inalienable rights;
- legal equality;
- separation of powers;
- limitation of the state;
- protection of minorities;
- religious freedom;
- constitutional review;
- democratic legitimacy;
- rights of defense against public power.
From this perspective, human rights possess not only a political history, but also a profound moral, philosophical, religious, and legal genealogy.
10. Legality Is Not Automatically Synonymous with Justice
One of the most important questions in Eckart Otto’s recent work is the distinction between legality and legitimacy.
Legality means that a norm was produced according to procedures formally recognized by a legal system.
Legitimacy requires an additional question:
Is the norm just, rationally defensible, and compatible with fundamental rights and human dignity?
A formally enacted law may reflect private interests, discriminate against certain groups, abusively expand state power, or permit serious violations of human rights.
For this reason, the constitutional state cannot reduce law to the mere will of those who temporarily exercise political power.
Modern constitutionalism requires that the creation, interpretation, and application of laws be subject to:
- fundamental rights;
- due process of law;
- equality;
- proportionality;
- prohibition of arbitrariness;
- judicial review;
- democratic participation;
- protection of human dignity;
- public accountability;
- commitment to justice.
Otto’s research demonstrates that this problem did not begin in modernity. Ancient societies already faced the conflict among power, authority, positive law, justice, and legitimacy.
11. Conclusion
Professor Eckart Otto’s courses and scholarly works make an extraordinary contribution to understanding the historical roots of constitutionalism and human rights.
The sequence offered at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich begins with Plato, Aristotle, and the Bible, passes through the history of natural law, and reaches Thomas Hobbes, modern theories of sovereignty, constitutionalism, and Jürgen Habermas.
It is an interdisciplinary investigation into a fundamental question for every society:
Where does the authority of law come from, and under what conditions may a law be regarded as truly legitimate?
The answer cannot be found exclusively in legal codes, courts, or legislative procedures.
It requires the study of history, philosophy, ethics, religion, political institutions, and human struggles against abuses of power.
Eckart Otto’s work reminds us that human rights are not a gracious concession by the state.
They represent the historical result of centuries of reflection, resistance, human experience, and the search for legal and moral limits capable of protecting the person against arbitrariness.
REFERENCES
ACADEMIA.EDU. Eckart Otto: academic profile. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Faculty of Protestant Theology. [S. l.], [2026]. Available at: https://lmu-munich.academia.edu/EOtto. Accessed on: July 19, 2026.
LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITÄT MÜNCHEN. Eckart Otto: Curriculum Vitae. Academia.edu, [2026]. Available at: https://lmu-munich.academia.edu/EOtto/CurriculumVitae. Accessed on: July 19, 2026.
LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITÄT MÜNCHEN. Eckart Otto: bibliographies. Academia.edu, [2026]. Available at: https://lmu-munich.academia.edu/EOtto/Bibliographies. Accessed on: July 19, 2026.
LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITÄT MÜNCHEN. Eckart Otto: lectures. Academia.edu, [2026]. Available at: https://lmu-munich.academia.edu/EOtto/Lectures. Accessed on: July 19, 2026.
LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITÄT MÜNCHEN. Prof. em. Dr. Dr. h.c. Eckart Otto. Munich, [2026]. Available at: https://www.evtheol.lmu.de/de/die-fakultaet/personen/kontaktseite/eckart-otto-42e740da.html. Accessed on: July 19, 2026.
LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITÄT MÜNCHEN. Guest students — Gaststudierende. Munich, [2026]. Available at: https://www.lmu.de/de/studium/hochschulzugang/gaststudierende/. Accessed on: July 19, 2026.
OTTO, Eckart. Die Menschenrechte als sakraler Kern im neuzeitlichen Verfassungsrecht: biblische und kanonistische Impulse in der rechtsphilosophischen Forschung zum neuzeitlichen Natur- und Verfassungsrecht. Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte, v. 33, p. 1–59, 2026. Available through the author’s academic profile at: https://lmu-munich.academia.edu/EOtto. Accessed on: July 19, 2026.
OTTO, Eckart. Legality and legitimacy of law in light of ancient sources and the Hebrew Bible. Lecture presented at the International Workshop The Political Bible, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, July 25–26, 2025. Academia.edu, 2025. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/130379778/Eckart_Otto_Legality_and_Legitimacy_of_Law_in_Light_of_Ancient_Sources_and_the_Hebrew_Bible_Lecture_on_the_international_Workshop_The_Political_Bible_July_25_26_2025_at_the_Ludwig_Maximilians_Universit%C3%A4t_M%C3%BCnchen. Accessed on: July 19, 2026.
OTTO, Eckart. Main traits of a legal history in the Hebrew Bible from the Neo-Assyrian to the Persian Period. Lecture presented at the Center of Judaic and Inter-Religious Studies at Shandong University, China, November 2025. Academia.edu, 2025. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/145034804/Eckart_Otto_Main_Traits_of_a_Legal_History_in_the_Hebrew_Bible_from_the_Neo_Assyrian_to_the_Persian_Period_Lecture_at_the_Center_of_Judaic_and_Inter_Religious_Studies_at_Shandong_University_China_November_2025. Accessed on: July 19, 2026.
OTTO, Eckart. Plato and the Bible: human rights as subject of a republican political theology beyond the German tradition of Carl Schmitt. Lecture presented at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, within the framework of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, May 12, 2024. Academia.edu, 2024. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/117427948/Eckart_Otto_Plato_and_the_Bible_Human_Rights_as_Subject_of_a_Republican_Political_Theology_beyond_the_German_Tradition_of_Carl_Schmitt_Lecture_at_the_Aristotle_University_Thessaloniki_Alexander_von_Humboldt_Stiftung_12_5_2024. Accessed on: July 19, 2026.
OTTO, Eckart. Programm der Vorlesung von Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Eckart Otto an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München im Wintersemester 2025/26: Platon, Aristoteles und die Bibel: Recht und Ethos in der Antike und im modernen Rechtsstaat. Academia.edu, 2025. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/143876273/Programm_der_Vorlesung_von_Prof_Dr_Dr_h_c_Eckart_Otto_an_der_Ludwig_Maximilians_Universit%C3%A4t_M%C3%BCnchen_im_Wintersemester_2025_26_Platon_Aristoteles_und_die_Bibel_Recht_und_Ethos_in_der_Antike_und_im_modernen_Rechtsstaat. Accessed on: July 19, 2026.
OTTO, Eckart. Vorlesungsankündigung im Wintersemester 2025/26: Platon, Aristoteles und die Bibel: Recht und Ethos in der Antike und im modernen Rechtsstaat. Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Academia.edu, 2025. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/143570494/Vorlesungsank%C3%BCndigung_Prof_Dr_Dr_h_c_Eckart_Otto_im_Wintersemester_2025_26_an_der_Ludwig_Maximilians_Universit%C3%A4t_M%C3%BCnchen_Platon_Aristoteles_und_die_Bibel_Recht_und_Ethos_in_der_Antike_und_im_modernen_Rechtsstaat_Freitag_10_00_12_00_ct_im_Hauptgeb%C3%A4ude_der_LMU_H%C3%B6rsaal_F_007. Accessed on: July 19, 2026.
OTTO, Eckart. Vorlesungsankündigung Wintersemester 2026/27: Die Geschichte des Natur- und Verfassungsrechts von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Teil II: Von Thomas Hobbes bis zu Jürgen Habermas. Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, 2026. Available at: https://lmu-munich.academia.edu/EOtto. Accessed on: July 19, 2026.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário