Griesbach, Johann Jakob

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, of the soundest judgment and of the greatest diligence" (Gregory), he worked on the "synoptic" question, a word coined by him. He distinguished himself by his work in the textual criticism of the New Testament.

Sparing no travel, even to England and France, he made a precious collection of variant readings drawn from manuscripts, from ancient translations and quotations, particularly from Origen. After the fundamental principle of classifying manuscripts into families was introduced by Bengel into the textual criticism of the New Testament, Semler and his disciple G. carried this research further. G. distinguished three families: Alexandrian, Western and Constantinopolitan. He pointed out that it is not enough to classify the codices, but that even parts of codices may belong to various families. He elaborated the normative 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 various editions of the Greek New Testament, reprinted several times. His mature and final judgment on the text is found in the editio minor of 1805 (Gregory).

Ernesto Vogt