Soden introduced a new notation of manuscripts and also developed a new theory of textual history. He believed that in the 4th century there were in existence three recensions of the text of the New Testament, which he distinguished as K, H and I. After establishing the text of I, H and K, Soden reconstructed a hypothetical text, I-H-K, which he believed to have been their ancestor. He then tried to show that this text was known to all the writers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries.[1]
Soden died in a railway accident in Berlin on January 15, 1914. His descendant Wolfram von Soden became a noted Assyriologist.
Works
His most important book is Die Schriften des neuen Testaments, in ihrer ältesten erreichbaren Textgestalt / hergestellt auf Grund ihrer Textgeschichte (4 vols., Berlin: Glaue, 1902-1910); certainly the most important work on the text of the New Testament which had been published since Westcott and Hort's The New Testament in the Original Greek.[1] Other works include:
Der Brief des Apostels Paulus an die Philipper, Freiburg i. Br., 1880.
Hebräerbrief, Briefe des Petrus, Jakobus, Judas, Freiburg i. Br., 1890.
Und was thut die evangelische Kirche? Erwogen angesichts der Reichstagswahlen, zumal in unseren Großstädten, 3rd. ed., Berlin: Nauck, 1890 (a pamphlet written during the campaign for the Reichstag election)
Die Briefe an die Kolosser, Epheser, Philemon; die Pastoralbriefe, Freiburg i. Br., 1891.
"Untersuchungen über neutestamentliche Schriften" in Protestantisches Jahrbuch für theologische Studien und Schriftkommentar, 1895–1897.
Die wichtigsten Fragen im Leben Jesu, Ferienkurs-Vorträge Berlin, 1904.
Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments in ihrer ältesten erreichbaren Textgestalt hergestellt auf Grund ihrer Textgeschichte. 4 volumes, Berlin, 1902–1913.
Urchristliche Literaturgeschichte, die Schriften des Neuen Testaments, Berlin: Duncker, 1905.
Hat Jesus gelebt? Aus den geschichtlichen Urkunden beantwortet von Hermann von Soden, Berlin, 1910.
He contributed to the 1903 Encyclopaedia Biblica and to the "Hand-Commentar zum Neuen Testament", several editions, started in 1855 by Heinrich Julius Holtzmann and Hans von Soden