Johann David Michaelis

Johann David Michaelis (27 February 1717 – 22 August 1791) was a German biblical scholar and teacher. He was member of a family that was committed to solid discipline in Hebrew and the cognate languages, which distinguished the University of Halle in the period of Pietism. He was a member of the Göttingen school of history.

Life and work

Michaelis was born on 27 February 1717 in Halle an der Saale. His Pietistic Lutheran family placed a great deal of importance in the study of Oriental languages in fulfilling the Church's goal.

Family Michaelis' great uncle Johann Heinrich Michaelis (1668–1738) was the chief director of 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). 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. Michaelis' daughter 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.