ISENBIEHL, JOHANN LORENZ. - Catholic exegete and Orientalist, born in 1744 at Heiligenstadt (Eichsfeld), died on 26 Dec. 1818 at Östrich (Rheingau). Parish priest at Göttingen, he especially attended the course in Oriental languages under Johann David Michaelis (1769). In 1773 he was appointed professor of Oriental languages and exegesis at the Seminary of Mainz, where he revealed rather liberal principles of interpretation, paying little heed to the unanimous consensus of the Fathers; he provoked the celebrated controversy over Is. 7:14, to which text he denied any messianic sense, despite its citation in Mt. 1:22 sq. (v. EMANUELE).
This thesis, published in his book *Neuer Versuch über die Weissagung vom Emmanuel* (Coblenz 1778), earned him suspension *a divinis*, imprisonment, opposition from theologians and exegetes, censure from several theological faculties (Strasbourg, Mainz, Vienna, Paris, etc.), and condemnation of the work to the Index (decision of 20 Sept. 1779). At Christmas of the same year, I. submitted, obtained his freedom, and a canonry at Amöneburg.
Other works by I. include: *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).