GRIESBACH, JOHANN JAKOB. - German Protestant theologian, b. at Butzbach on 4 Jan. 1745, d. at Jena on 24 March 1812. He was professor of the New Testament at Halle (from 1773) and at Jena (from 1775). “A man of the highest talents, most sober judgment, and utmost diligence” (Gregory), he worked on the “synoptic” question, a term he himself coined. He distinguished himself through his works of New Testament textual criticism.
Sparing no journeys, including those to England and France, he amassed a valuable collection of variant readings drawn from manuscripts, ancient translations and citations, particularly from Origen. After the fundamental principle of classifying manuscripts into families had been introduced by Bengel into New Testament textual criticism, Semler and his disciple G. advanced these investigations. G. distinguished three families: Alexandrian, Western, and Constantinopolitan. He pointed out that it is not enough to classify codices, but that parts of codices themselves may belong to different families. He formulated the guiding principle that, among several variants, the one supported by two families is to be preferred, thereby disqualifying the great mass of manuscripts of the Constantinopolitan family (textus receptus) and opening the way to a more objective restoration of the text. He produced several editions of the Greek New Testament, repeatedly reprinted. His mature and final judgment on the text is found in the editio minor of 1805 (Gregory).