Johann Jakob Wettstein

Johann Jakob Wettstein (also Wetstein; 5 March 1693 – 23 March 1754) was a Swiss theologian, best known as a New Testament critic.

Johann Jakob Wettstein was born in Basel. Among his tutors in theology was Samuel Werenfels (1657–1740), an influential anticipator of modern scientific exegesis. While still a student Wettstein began to direct his attention to the special pursuit of his life, the text of the Greek New Testament. A relative, Johann Wettstein, who was the university librarian, gave him permission to examine and collate the principal manuscripts of the New Testament in the library, and he copied the various readings which they contained into his copy of Gerard of Maastricht's edition of the Greek text.

In 1713 in his public examination he defended a dissertation entitled De variis Novi Testamenti lectionibus, and sought to show that variety of readings did not detract from the authority of the Bible. Wettstein paid great attention also to Aramaic and Talmudic Hebrew. In the spring of 1714 he undertook a learned tour, which led him to Paris and England, the great object of his inquiry everywhere being manuscripts of the New Testament. In 1716 he made the acquaintance of Richard Bentley at the University of Cambridge; Bentley took great interest in his work and persuaded him to return to Paris to collate carefully the Codex Ephraemi, Bentley having then in view a critical edition of the New Testament.

In July 1717 Wettstein returned to take the office of a curate at large (diaconus communis) at Basel, a post which he held for three years, after which he became his father's colleague and successor in the parish of St Leonard's. At the same time he pursued his favorite study, and gave private lectures on New Testament exegesis. It was then that he decided to prepare a critical edition of the Greek New Testament. He had in the meantime broken with Bentley, whose famous Proposals appeared in 1720. His earlier teachers, however, J. C. Iselin and J. L. Frey, who were engaged upon work similar to his own, became so unfriendly towards him that after a time he was forbidden any further use of the manuscripts in the library.

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