Editing Johann David Michaelis

{{Short description|Prussian academic (1717–1791)}}
[[File:Voit 027 Johann David Michaelis.jpg|right|thumb|Johann David Michaelis (1790)]]
'''Johann David Michaelis''' (27 February 1717 &ndash; 22 August 1791) was a German biblical scholar and teacher. He was member of a family that was committed to solid discipline in [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] and the cognate languages, which distinguished the [[University of Halle]] in the period of [[Pietism]].<ref name=EB1911>{{EB1911 |wstitle=Michaelis, Johann David |volume=18 |page=360 |inline=1}}</ref> He was a member of the [[Göttingen school of history]].<ref name="Stroumsa">{{cite book |last1=Stroumsa |first1=Guy G. |title=The Idea of Semitic Monotheism: The Rise and Fall of a Scholarly Myth |date=2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780192653864 |page=67 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RRUuEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA67}}</ref>

==Life and work==

Michaelis was born on 27 February 1717 in [[Halle an der Saale]].<ref name="McKim">{{cite book |last1=McKim |first1=Donald K. |title=Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters |date=2007 |publisher=InterVarsity Press |isbn=9780830829279 |page=736 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oFLGroLOKq8C&pg=PA736}}</ref> His [[Pietism|Pietistic Lutheran]] family placed a great deal of importance in the study of [[Oriental languages]] in fulfilling the Church's goal.<ref name="McKim" /> He was trained for academic life under his father's eye.<ref name="EB1911" /> At Halle he was influenced, especially in [[philosophy]], by [[Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten|Siegmund J. Baumgarten]] (1706–1757), the link between the old Pietism and [[Johann Salomo Semler|J. S. Semler]], while he cultivated his strong taste for history under Chancellor Ludwig.<ref name="EB1911" />

In 1739, he completed his doctoral dissertation, where he defended the antiquity and divine authority of the [[Niqqud|vowel points]] in [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]].<ref name="McKim" /> His scholarship still moved along the old traditional lines, and he was also much exercised by certain religious scruples, with some seeing a conflict between his independent mind and that of submission to authority - encouraged by the [[Lutheranism]] in which he had been trained.<ref name=EB1911/> He visited [[England]] and the [[Netherlands]] in 1741–1742. In Holland, he became acquainted with [[Albert Schultens]], whose philological views would influence him.<ref name="McKim" /> In 1745 he became an assistant professor (''[[Privatdozent]]'') of oriental languages at the [[University of Göttingen|Göttingen]]. In 1746 he became ''professor extraordinarius'' and in 1750 ''ordinarius''. He remained in Göttingen until his death in 1791.<ref name=EB1911/> From 1771-1785 he was editor of the ''Orientalische Und Exegetische Bibliothek''.<ref name="McKim" />

One of his works was a translation of four parts of [[Samuel Richardson]]'s ''Clarissa''; and translations of some of the then current English paraphrases on biblical books showed his sympathy with a school which attracted him by its freer air. His Oriental studies were reshaped by reading Schultens; for the Halle school, with all its learning, had no conception of the principles on which a fruitful connection between Biblical and Oriental learning could be established. His linguistic work was hampered by the lack of manuscript material, which is felt in his philological writings, e.g., in his valuable ''Supplementa'' to the Hebrew lexicons (1784–1792). He could not become such an Arabist as [[Johann Jakob Reiske|J. J. Reiske]]; and, though for many years the most famous teacher of [[Semitic languages]] in Europe, neither his grammatical nor his critical work has left a permanent mark, with the exception perhaps of his text-critical studies on the ''[[Peshitta]]''.<ref name=EB1911/> He had a particular interest for history, antiquities, and especially geography and natural science. He had in fact started his university course as a ''medicinae cultor'', and in his autobiography he half regrets that he did not choose the medical profession. In geography he found a field hardly touched since [[Samuel Bochart]], in whose footsteps he followed in the ''Spicilegium geographiae hebraeorum exterae post Bochartum'' (1769–1780).<ref name=EB1911/>

Michaelis inspired the famous [[Danish Arabia Expedition (1761–67)]], conducted by [[Carsten Niebuhr]] and [[Peter Forsskål]]. The [[cuneiform]] inscriptions Niebuhr brought back from the expedition were the basis for the earliest attempts made to decipher cuneiform.<ref name="McKim" /> In spite of his [[doctrinal]] writings—which at the time made no little noise, so that his ''Compendium of Dogmatic'' (1760) was confiscated in [[Sweden]], and the [[Order of the Polar Star|Knighthood of the Polar Star]] was afterwards given him in reparation—it was the natural side of the [[Bible]] that really attracted him. Michaelis arguably contributed the most in introducing the method of studying Hebrew antiquity as an integral part of ancient Eastern life.<ref name=EB1911/>
[[Image:Johann David Michaelis.jpg|thumb|Johann David Michaelis (1717-91)]]
The personal character of Michaelis can be read between the lines of his autobiography with the aid of the other materials collected by [[Johann Matthäus Hassencamp|J. M. Hassencamp]] (''J. D. Michaelis Lebensbeschreibung'', etc., 1793). The same volume contains a full list of his works. Besides those already mentioned it is sufficient to refer to his ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=52suAAAAYAAJ Introduction to the New Testament]'' (the first edition, 1750, preceded the full development of his powers, and is a very different book from the later editions), his reprint of [[Robert Lowth]]'s ''Praelectiones'' with important additions (1758–1762), his German translation of the Bible with notes (1773–1792), his ''Orientalische und exegetische Bibliothek'' (1775–1785) and ''Neue O. und E. Bib.'' (1786–1791), his ''Mosaisches Recht'' (1770–1771) (quite influenced by [[Montesquieu]]'s ''L'esprit des lois'' of 1748) and his edition of [[Edmund Castell]]'s ''Lexicon syriacum'' (1787–1788). His ''Litterarischer Briefwechsel'' (1794–1796) contains much that is interesting for the history of learning in his time.<ref name=EB1911/>

He was elected a [[Fellow of the Royal Society]] in 1789.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://collections.royalsociety.org/DServe.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=%28%28text%29%3D%27michaelis%27%29|title=Fellow details|publisher=Royal Society|access-date=26 January 2016|archive-date=14 March 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220314021628/https://collections.royalsociety.org/DServe.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=%28%28text%29%3D%27michaelis%27%29|url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Family==
* Michaelis' great uncle [[Johann Heinrich Michaelis]] (1668–1738) was the chief director of [[August Hermann Francke|A.H. Francke]]'s ''Collegium orientale theologicum'', a practical school of Biblical and Oriental [[philology]] then quite unique, and the author of an annotated Hebrew Bible and various [[exegetical]] works of reputation, especially the ''Adnotationes uberiores in hagiographos'' (1720).<ref name=EB1911/>
* Michaelis' daughter Luise Michaelis was briefly engaged to Gothic writer and philosopher [[Carl Grosse]].<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Bridgwater |first=Patrick |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/864747549 |title=German Gothic Novel in Anglo-German Perspective. |publisher=Rodopi |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-306-16765-9 |location=Amsterdam |pages=74 |oclc=864747549}}</ref>
* In his chief publications J. H. Michaelis had as fellow-worker his sister's son [[Christian Benedikt Michaelis]] (1680–1764), the father of Johann David, who was likewise influential as professor at the University of Halle, and a sound scholar, especially in [[Syriac language|Syriac]].<ref name=EB1911/>
* Michaelis' daughter [[Karoline Schelling|Caroline]] played an important role in early German [[Romanticism]] as the wife of critic [[August Wilhelm von Schlegel]] and later of philosopher [[Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling]].

==References==
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Michaelis, Johann David}}
[[Category:1717 births]]
[[Category:1791 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Halle (Saale)]]
[[Category:People from the Duchy of Magdeburg]]
[[Category:German orientalists]]
[[Category:German Lutheran theologians]]
[[Category:18th-century German Protestant theologians]]
[[Category:18th-century German scholars]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Göttingen]]
[[Category:German male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:18th-century German male writers]]
[[Category:18th-century biblical scholars]]
[[Category:Lutheran biblical scholars]]
[[Category:18th-century Christian biblical scholars]]