Eberhard Nestle
Encyclopedia
Eberhard Nestle was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 biblical scholar, textual critic, Orientalist, editor of Novum Testamentum Graece
Novum Testamentum Graece
Novum Testamentum Graece is the Latin name editions of the original Greek-language version of the New Testament.The first printed edition was the Complutensian Polyglot Bible by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, printed in 1514, but not published until 1520...

, and the father of Erwin Nestle
Erwin Nestle
Erwin Nestle , son of Eberhard Nestle, was a German scholar who continued editing his fathers "Nestle Edition" of the New Testament in Greek, adding a full critical apparatus in the thirteenth edition....

.

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 fathers second marriage was classical philologist Wilhelm Nestle.

Nestle studied in the University of Tübingen from 1869 to 1874. His studies culminated in his doctoral thesis on the Hebrew and Greek text forms of the Book of Ezekiel
Book of Ezekiel
The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, following the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah and preceding the Book of the Twelve....

. Afterwards he worked in the area of orientalism and wrote, among other things, a Syriac
Syriac language
Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...

 grammar. During his later years, his focus changed to textual criticism of the New Testament.

Between 1898 and 1912 he worked as professor at the Evangelical Seminaries of Maulbronn and Blaubeuren
Evangelical Seminaries of Maulbronn and Blaubeuren
The Protestant Seminaries of Maulbronn and Blaubeuren in Baden-Württemberg, Germany are two Gymnasiums and Protestant boarding schools in the Württemberg tradition....

.

In 1880, he married Klara Kommerell (1852–1887) in Tübingen; they produced 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 an influential handbook of textual criticism
Textual criticism
Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...

, 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
Novum Testamentum Graece
Novum Testamentum Graece is the Latin name editions of the original Greek-language version of the New Testament.The first printed edition was the Complutensian Polyglot Bible by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, printed in 1514, but not published until 1520...

. The text of this Greek New Testament was combined with the editions of Constantin von Tischendorf
Constantin von Tischendorf
Lobegott Friedrich Constantin Tischendorf was a noted German Biblical scholar. He deciphered the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, a 5th century Greek manuscript of the New Testament, in the 1840s, and rediscovered the Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th century New Testament manuscript, in 1859.Tischendorf...

 (Editio octava critica maior
Editio Octava Critica Maior
Editio Octava Critica Maior is a critical edition of the Greek New Testament produced by Constantin von Tischendorf. It was Tischendorf's eighth edition of the Greek Testament, and the most important, published between 1864 and 1894.- Edition :...

), The New Testament in the Original Greek
The New Testament in the Original Greek
The New Testament in the Original Greek is the name of 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 and Fenton John Anthony Hort...

 of Westcott
Brooke Foss Westcott
Brooke Foss Westcott was a British bishop, Biblical scholar and theologian, serving as Bishop of Durham from 1890 until his death.-Early life and education:...

 and Hort
Fenton John Anthony Hort
Fenton John Anthony Hort was an Irish theologian and editor, with Brooke Westcott of a critical edition of The New Testament in the Original Greek.-Life:...

, and the edition of Richard Francis Weymouth
Richard Francis Weymouth
Richard Francis Weymouth was an English lay Baptist bible scholar.Born in 1822 near Devonport, Devon, which is about 2 miles north northwest of Plymouth, England. He was a Baptist layman educated at the University College London. His works include The New Testament in Modern Speech, which is also...

. It was edited by the Württemberg Bible Society in Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

. This edition eliminated the extremes of Tischendorf (partiality to Sinaiticus
Codex Sinaiticus
Codex Sinaiticus is one of the four great uncial codices, an ancient, handwritten copy of the Greek Bible. It is an Alexandrian text-type manuscript written in the 4th century in uncial letters on parchment. Current scholarship considers the Codex Sinaiticus to be one of the best Greek texts of...

) and of Westcott and Hort (partiality to Vaticanus
Codex Vaticanus
The Codex Vaticanus , is one of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Greek Bible , one of the four great uncial codices. The Codex is named for the residence in the Vatican Library, where it has been stored since at least the 15th century...

).

This edition became influential when the British and Foreign Bible Society
British and Foreign Bible Society
The British and Foreign Bible Society, often known in England and Wales as simply as Bible Society, is a non-denominational Christian Bible society with charity status whose purpose is to make the Bible available throughout the world....

 adopted it to replace the Textus Receptus
Textus Receptus
Textus Receptus is the name subsequently given to the succession of printed Greek texts of the New Testament which constituted the translation base for the original German Luther Bible, the translation of the New Testament into English by William Tyndale, the King James Version, and for most other...

. After a few years this edition received worldwide recognition as the best edition of the Greek New Testament. This edition took the place which formerly belonged to the Textus Receptus
Textus Receptus
Textus Receptus is the name subsequently given to the succession of printed Greek texts of the New Testament which constituted the translation base for the original German Luther Bible, the translation of the New Testament into English by William Tyndale, the King James Version, and for most other...

 and became a "New Textus Receptus".

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
Kurt Aland
Kurt Aland was a German Theologian and Professor of New Testament Research and Church History. He founded the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster and served as its first director for many years...

 (21st edition). The theological standard work "Nestle-Aland" appeared from 1993 in the 27th edition.

Works

  • Syriac Grammar with Bibliography, Chrestomathy and Glossary;
  • Psalterium tetraglottum graece, syriace, chaldaice et latine, 1879;
  • Veteris Testamenti graeci codices Vaticanus et Sinaiticus cum texto recepto collati, 1880, 2. Aufl. 1887;
  • A Palestinian Syriac Lectionary containing lessons from the Pentateuch, Job, Proverbs, Prophets, Acts, and Epistles, 1897;

External links

Éditions Nestlé-Aland du Nouveau Testament grec List of all available editions.
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