Lorenz Schmidt

Johann Lorenz Schmidt (born November 30, 1702 in Zell near Schweinfurt ; † December 19/20, 1749 in Wolfenbüttel ) was a German theologian of the early Enlightenment .

Schmidt studied theology in Jena. He was working on a translation of the Bible , the Wertheimer Bible , the first part of which, the five books of Moses, appeared at Easter 1735. The Pentateuch , rationalistically translated by the Enlightenment , sparked a storm of indignation among Orthodoxy and the Pietists .

Fritz Mauthner described it like this: it caused a storm in the theological swamp, an anger that we can hardly sink to understand today. What was so resentful of him was initially the boldness of trying to suppress Luther's text, which has been almost sacred by a tradition of 200 years; But then it was Wolff's rationalism with which he literally reproduced the original text (e.g. “a strong wind” blew over the waters instead of “the spirit of God”) * and with which he used numerous and often superfluous comments to describe the Bible simply stated, with the overall intention of critically rejecting all prophecies of the Old Testament that refer to Jesus Christ. He was declared a religious mocker, and especially the vicious fanatic Joachim Lange incited the Protestant church and the imperial tax office after him. The protection of the Count's house of Wertheim, where he lived as tutor to the young men, could not help him much, because the princely line of the house was preparing to carry out the Emperor's orders; but after the confiscation of the book and after his arrest (1737) he was kindly allowed to escape to Altona, ...

As a translator of posthumous works of Spinoza , the "Opera Postuma" (not d under whose name, but only the first letter B. p.) He received the Spinoza persecuted, 1747 before Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in Wolfenbüttel under the name Schröder a Employment as a court mathematician.

Lessing had passed it off as the likely author of the anti-Christian plays, which had caused great excitement in the fragmentation dispute, so that Hermann Samuel Reimarus , the true author, would not be known.

Works

• The Divine Scriptures before the times of the Messiah Jesus 1st part, which comprehends the laws of the Israelites in itself. After a free translation, which is explained and confirmed through and through with notes. 1735
• Collection of those writings which came to light on the occasion of the local Bible work for or against the same. 1738.

literature

• Hermann Ehmer:  SCHMIDT, Johann Lorenz. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 9, Bautz, Herzberg 1995, ISBN 3-88309-058-1 , Sp. 459-460.
• Gustav Frank :  Schmidt, Johann Lorenz . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 31, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1890, pp. 739-741.
• Werner Raupp :  Schmidt, Johann Lorenz. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 194 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Werner Raupp : Schmidt, Johann Lorenz . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 5 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0640-0 , p. 325-327 .
• Werner Raupp : Schmidt, Johann Salomo. In: Heiner F. Klemme, Manfred Kuehn (General Editors): The Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers. Vol. 3. Continuum, London / New York 2010, ISBN 978-0-8264-1862-3 , pp. 1045-1047.
• Andres Straßberger: Johann Lorenz Schmidt and Johann Gustav Reinbeck. On the problem of "left" and "right Wolfianism" in theology. In: Albrecht Beutel, Volker Leppin , Udo Sträter, Markus Wriedt (eds.): Enlightened Christianity. Contributions to the history of the church and theology of the 18th century (= AKThG 31). Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-374-02790-3 , pp. 23–52.

Web links

• The 5 books of Moses digitized
• Ursula Goldenbaum on the Wertheim Bible
• Martin Mulzer:  Schmidt, Johann Lorenz. In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (Eds.): The Scientific Biblical Lexicon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff.