Johann Jakob Griesbach

Johann Jakob Griesbach studied at University of Tübingen, Leipzig University and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. Training under Johann Salomo Semler, Johann Georg Knapp and Johann Severin Vater is recorded. Johann Philipp Gabler is recorded as having studied under Johann Jakob Griesbach. The recorded working language is Latin. Places of work recorded in the authority are Jena. Employment is recorded with University of Jena and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. Positions recorded include rector of the University of Jena. Work by Johann Jakob Griesbach is recorded in the collections of CODA Museum.

He was born in Butzbach, a small town in the state of Hesse-Darmstadt, where his father, Konrad Kaspar (1705–1777), was pastor. Griesbach was educated at Frankfurt, and at the universities of Tübingen, Leipzig and Halle, where he became one of J. S. Semler's most ardent disciples. It was Semler who induced him to turn his attention to the textual criticism of the New Testament. At the close of his undergraduate career he undertook a literary tour through Germany, the Netherlands, France and England. In England he may have met Henry Owen whose seminal work Observations on the Four Gospels (1764) is listed among the books of Griesbach's estate, although he does not seem to have acknowledged any indebtedness to Owen. On his return to Halle, Griesbach acted for some time as Privatdozent, but in 1773 was appointed to a professorial chair; in 1775 he went to the University of Jena, where he spent the rest of his life (though he received calls to other universities). He died in Jena.

In 1776 Griesbach published his Greek Gospel synopsis of Matthew, Mark and Luke as a volume separate from his critical edition of the New Testament (cf. above), of which it had previously been a part, and thereby established the tool of a synopsis as an essential research aid in New Testament studies. For Griesbach's hypothesis concerning the interrelation of the Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and its modern variant, see Griesbach hypothesis.

To mark the bicentenary of the publication of Griesbach's Gospel synopsis as a separate volume a group of distinguished international biblical scholars met in July 1976 at Münster/Westphalia for the Johann Jakob Griesbach Bicentenary Colloquium 1776–1976. A selection of the papers presented at the colloquium appraising Griesbach's life, work and influence, aimed "to indicate why an understanding of this scholar's contribution to New Testament criticism is important both for the history of New Testament scholarship and for contemporary research", together with the text in Latin and in English translation of The Dissertation of J. J. Griesbach, Doctor of Theology and Principal Professor in the University of Jena, in which he demonstrates that the entire Gospel of Mark has been extracted from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, written in the name of the University of Jena (1789–1790), now revised and furnished with many additions, are to be found in Bernard Orchard and Thomas R. W. Longstaff (ed.), J. J. Griesbach: Synoptic and Text-Critical Studies 1776-1976, Volume 34 in the SNTS Monograph Series (Cambridge University Press, hardback 1978, paperback 2005).

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