Bretschneider, Karl Gottlieb - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. III, p. 69

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

BRETSCHNEIDER, KARL GOTTLIEB. – German Protestant theologian and critic, born in Gersdorf (Saxony) on 11 February 1776, died in Gotha on 22 January 1848.

Author of numerous works, in the theological field he was one of the principal representatives of rationalism (“rational supernaturalism”); in the biblical field, through his early writings, he was a pioneer of negative criticism. His principal works are: Systemat. Entwicklung aller in der Dogmatik vorkommenden Begriffe, Leipzig 1804, 4th ed. 1841; Handbuch der Dogmatik der evang.-lutheranischen Kirche, there 1814, 4th ed. 1838; Probabilia de Evang. et Epist. Ioannis Apost. indole et origine, there 1820; Histor.-dogmatische Auslegung des N. T., there 1806. In the Corpus Reformatorum (27 vols.: I-XVII, Halle 1834-51; XVIII-XXVII, Brunswick 1853-59) he published the works of Melanchthon, and he published a dictionary of New Testament Greek.

BIBL.: Selbst-Biographie, published by Horst B., Gotha 1851; G. Frank, in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, III, Leipzig 1876, p. 319; P. Hagenbach, in Realenc. für prot. Theol. u. Kirche, III, 3rd ed., Leipzig 1897, pp. 389-91; J. Moffatt, Ninety years after: A survey of Bretschneider's «probabilia» in the light of subsequent johannine criticism, in American Journal of Theology, 17 (1913), pp. 368-76; H. Hoffmann, in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, I, 2nd ed., Tübingen 1927, col. 1251.

Teofilo Antolin