BLEEK, FRIEDRICH. - One of the best German Protestant exegetes of the nineteenth century. Born at Arensbök near Lübeck on 4 July 1793, he studied at Lübeck, Kiel, and Berlin, where he was a disciple of De Wette, Neander, and
Schleiermacher, who exercised great influence
upon him. In 1829 he became professor at Bonn, where
he taught until his death (27 Feb. 1859).
Many of his studies appeared in the journal Theologische Studien und Kritiken. His principal work is: Der Brief an die Hebräer erläutert, in three parts (Berlin 1828, 1836, 1840). He also published: Beiträge zur Evangelienkritik (ibid. 1846). From his lectures his son Giovanni and his disciple A. Kamphausen produced various posthumous works, among them the Einleitung in das Alte Testament (ibid. 1860, 1865, 1870). In his criticism of the Old Testament B. is more radical than in that of the New; thus he defends the apostolic-Johannine origin of the Fourth Gospel, but for the Pentateuch he advocates the supplementary hypothesis.