Johann Jakob Wettstein facts for kids

Johann Jakob Wettstein (born March 5, 1693 – died March 23, 1754) was a smart Swiss religious scholar. He is best known for carefully studying the text of the New Testament. He spent his life comparing old copies of the Bible to understand its original words better.

About His Life

Early Years and Studies

Johann Jakob Wettstein was born in a city called Basel in Switzerland. When he was a student, he became very interested in the Greek New Testament. He wanted to find out exactly what the original Bible text said.

A relative, who was the university librarian, let him look at important old handwritten copies of the New Testament. Wettstein carefully copied down all the different ways words were written in these old books. He put these notes into his own copy of the Greek New Testament.

In 1713, he wrote a paper about how different copies of the New Testament had small changes. He argued that these small differences did not make the Bible less important. He also studied Aramaic and Hebrew. In 1714, he traveled to Paris and England. Everywhere he went, he looked for more old New Testament manuscripts to study. In 1716, he met Richard Bentley, a famous scholar, who encouraged him to keep working on his studies.

Working in Basel

In 1717, Wettstein returned to Basel and became a church leader called a deacon. Later, he became a pastor. At the same time, he continued his favorite study: understanding the New Testament. He decided to create a special edition of the Greek New Testament. This edition would show all the different ways the text appeared in old manuscripts.

However, some people in Basel began to question his religious beliefs. They thought his ideas were too different from what was commonly taught. In 1728, a former friend accused Wettstein of using his studies to promote different religious views. After an investigation, he was removed from his church job in 1730.

Moving to Amsterdam

After losing his job, Wettstein moved to Amsterdam. Another relative there had a big printing and publishing business. In 1730, Wettstein secretly published a book called Prolegomena. This book explained his ideas about how to study the Greek New Testament. He later published it again with more information in 1751.

In 1731, a group called the Remonstrants offered him a teaching job in Amsterdam. He had to go back to Basel to clear his name first. He was allowed to return to his old church duties in Basel in 1732. But when he tried to get a teaching job in Basel, his opponents stopped him. So, he went back to Amsterdam.

He became a professor at the Remonstrant college. He taught philosophy and Hebrew. In 1746, he visited England again to study more old manuscripts. Finally, his great work was published in 1751–1752. It was called Novum Testamentum Graecum.

This huge book had two volumes. It showed the standard Greek New Testament text, but it also listed all the different readings he found in old manuscripts. Below these readings, he added notes and examples from other old writings. In his Prolegomena, he explained his method for studying manuscripts and shared the story of the difficulties he faced. He was the first scholar to use Roman capital letters for older, important manuscripts and Arabic numbers for newer ones. He died shortly after finishing this important work.

His Important Work

Wettstein greatly helped the study of the Bible. He collected many different ways the Bible text was written. He also created a clear way to describe and organize the old manuscripts he studied.

Through his hard work, he believed he found some parts of the New Testament that might have been misunderstood or changed over time. For example, he questioned a verse in 1 Timothy 3:16. He thought the original text might have been "which was manifest in the flesh," instead of "God was manifest in the flesh." His studies made him think more critically about how the text of the Bible related to religious ideas.

Later in his life, he started to think that some of the oldest Greek manuscripts might have been changed by Latin versions. This made him trust those very old copies less. His main work, Novum Testamentum Graecum, used a common Greek text from 1624 as its base. But he included his preferred readings in the notes.

Some people criticized his work. They thought he was too biased against the Latin versions of the Bible. They also disagreed with his method of grouping manuscripts into families, which other scholars like Richard Bentley had suggested.

Wettstein wrote about his hard work and challenges in his book: Novum Testamentum Græcum editionis receptæ, cum Lectionibus Variantibus Codicum MSS., Editionum aliarum, Versionum et Patrum, necnon Commentario pleniore ex Scriptoribus veteribus, Hebræis, Græcis, et Latinis, historiam et vim verborum illustrante. This book was published in two volumes in Amsterdam.