ISENBIEHL, JOHANN LORENZ. - Catholic exegete and Orientalist, b. in 1744 at Heiligenstadt (Eichsfeld), d. 26 Dec. 1818 at Östrich (Rheingau). Parish priest at Göttingen, he attended in particular Johann David Michaelis’s course in Oriental languages (1769). Appointed in 1773 professor of Oriental languages and exegesis at the Seminary of Mainz, he displayed rather liberal principles of interpretation, paying little heed to the unanimous consensus of the Fathers; he provoked the celebrated controversy concerning Is. 7, 14, a text to which he denied any Messianic sense, despite its citation in Mt. 1, 22 ff. (v. EMANUELE).
This thesis of his, made public in the book Neuer Versuch über die Weissagung vom Emmanuel (Coblenza 1778), caused him suspension a divinis and imprisonment, the opposition of theologians and exegetes, the censure of various theological faculties (Strasbourg, Mainz, Vienna, Paris, etc.), and the condemnation of the work to the Index (decree of 20 Sept. 1779). At Christmas of the same year I. submitted, obtained his freedom, and a canonry at Amöneburg.
Other works by I. are: Beobachtungen von dem Gebrauch der syrischen Puncti diacritici bei den Verbis (Göttingen 1773); Chrestomathia patristica Graeca (Mainz 1774); Corpus decisionum dogmaticarum Ecclesiae catholicae (Constance 1777); De rebus divinis tractatus introducentes in universam Veteris ac Novi Testamenti Scripturam et theologiam christianam, I (Mainz 1787).