Eberhard Nestle (1 May 1851, Stuttgart – 9 March 1913, Stuttgart) was a German biblical

scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researc ...

, textual critic, orientalist, editor of the '' Novum Testamentum Graece'', and the father of Erwin Nestle.

Life

Nestle was a son of the upper tribunal procurator (''Obertribunalprokurator'') Christian Gottlieb Nestle and his wife Sophie Beate Kleinmann. His half-brother from his father's second marriage was classical philologist Wilhelm Nestle. Nestle studied at the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (german: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen; la, Universitas Eberhardina Carolina), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-W� ...

– the

Tübinger Stift The Tübinger Stift () is a hall of residence and teaching; it is owned and supported by the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg, and located in the university city of Tübingen, in South West Germany. The Stift was founded as an Augus ...

– from 1869 to 1874. His studies culminated in his doctoral thesis on the Hebrew and Greek text forms of the

Book of Ezekiel The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Tanakh and one of the major prophetic books, following Isaiah and Jeremiah. According to the book itself, it records six visions of the prophet Ezekiel, exiled in Babylon, during ...

. Afterwards he worked in the area of orientalism and wrote, among other things, a

Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

grammar. During his later years, his focus changed to

textual criticism Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in da ...

of the New Testament. Between 1898 and 1912 he worked as professor at the

Evangelical Seminaries of Maulbronn and Blaubeuren The Protestant (Evangelische, Gr.) Seminaries of Maulbronn and Blaubeuren (''Evangelische Seminare Maulbronn und Blaubeuren'') in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, are two '' Gymnasien'' (high schools) and Protestant boarding schools in the Württembe ...

. In 1880, he married Klara Kommerell (1852–87) in Tübingen; they had one son, Erwin Nestle. In 1887 his wife died after a short illness, and three years later, in 1890, Nestle married Elisabeth Aichele (1867–1944). In this second marriage, five daughters and one son were born. In 1898 Nestle published a handbook of textual criticism, and in 1898 published the first edition of a Greek New Testament under the title '' Novum Testamentum Graece cum apparatu critico ex editionibus et libris manu scriptis collecto''. The text of this Greek New Testament was combined with the editions of Constantin von Tischendorf ('' Editio octava critica maior''),

The New Testament in the Original Greek ''The New Testament in the Original Greek'' is a Greek-language version of the New Testament published in 1881. It is also known as the Westcott and Hort text, after its editors Brooke Foss Westcott (1825–1901) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828 ...

of Westcott and

Hort Hort may refer to: People * Erik Hort (born 1987), American soccer player * F. J. A. Hort (1828–1892), Irish theologian * Greta Hort (1903–1967), Danish-born literature professor * Josiah Hort (c. 1674–1751), English clergyman of the Chu ...

, and the edition of

Richard Francis Weymouth Dr. Richard Francis Weymouth (M.A., D.Litt.) (1822–1902) was an English schoolmaster, Baptist layman and Bible student known particularly for producing one of the earliest modern language translations of the New Testament. Life Born near Devo ...

. It was edited by the Württemberg Bible Society in Stuttgart. This edition eliminated the extremes of Tischendorf, such as partiality to Sinaiticus, and of Westcott and Hort, such as partiality to Vaticanus. This edition was adopted by the British and Foreign Bible Society, replacing the

Textus Receptus ''Textus Receptus'' (Latin: "received text") refers to all printed editions of the Greek New Testament from Erasmus's ''Novum Instrumentum omne'' (1516) to the 1633 Elzevir edition. It was the most commonly used text type for Protestant deno ...

. After the death of Eberhard Nestle his son Erwin Nestle (1883–1972) took over the publication and contributed substantially to a constant improvement of the editions. Since 1952 the edition occurred with the cooperation of Kurt Aland (21st edition). The theological standard work "Nestle-Aland" appeared from 1993 in the 27th edition.

Works

''Psalterium tetraglottum graece, syriace, chaldaice et latine''
(1879);
''Syrische grammatik mit litteratur, chrestomathie und glossar''
(1888); * ''Veteris Testamenti graeci codices Vaticanus et Sinaiticus cum texto recepto collati'', 1880, 2. Aufl. (1887);
''Marginalien und Materialen''
(1893)
''A Palestinian Syriac Lectionary containing lessons from the Pentateuch, Job, Proverbs, Prophets, Acts, and Epistles''
(1897); * ''Vom Textus Receptus des griechischen neuen Testaments: Ein erweiterter Vortrag'' (1903)
''Einführung in das griechische Neue Testament''
3. Aufl. (Göttingen: 1909).

References

External links

* * : list of all available editions. * . * * . * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nestle, Eberhard 1851 births 1913 deaths Grammarians from Germany German Lutherans Syriacists German biblical scholars New Testament scholars University of Tübingen alumni Lutheran biblical scholars 19th-century Lutherans