One of the most creative minds of the German Enlightenment. The son of a prominent theologian, Lessing was trained in the classics & theology, and eventually earned a degree in medicine. But from his student days, his real love was literature & theater. His comedies & tragedies, dealing with current situations, were the first works of German drama of lasting significance & influence. His life was marked by repeated financial crises that forced moves between Leipzig, Wittenberg & Berlin. In 1770 he accepted the duke of Brunswick's offer of a poorly paid position as librarian at Wolfenbüttel, where he produced his most important works, including Nathan the Wise (1779), a dramatic dialog arguing the philosophical case for religious tolerance.

Even more significant, however, was Lessing's decision to publish portions of a manuscript on rational religion that the daughter of H. S. Reimarus had given to him after her father's death (1767). These "Wolfenbüttel Fragments" (released anonymously from 1774-78) included essays on resurrection & "the aims of Jesus and his disciples." The latter was the first work to draw attention to the difference between the historical situation of a 1st c. Jew named Jesus of Nazareth & Christian dogma about Christ as the heavenly son of God. This distinction launched the most prolonged debate in modern NT scholarship: the quest of the historical Jesus.

Lessing himself did not publicly endorse Reimarus' views. But, more than a decade before Jefferson drafted the American bill of rights, this German humanist defended the right to conduct an open public discussion of the theological & historical issues these fragments raised. Since Lessing would not reveal the identity of the author of the fragments he had published, he himself became the target of criticism by conservative theologians. The controversy cost Lessing his position & his health. He died a pauper & was buried in a public grave.

Like Reimarus', Lessing's own research on the gospels was published posthumously (1784). To defend his decision to publish Reimarus' historical research into Christian origins, Lessing composed "A New Hypothesis on the Evangelists as merely Human Historians" (1778) in which he proposed a purely literary solution to the problem of the relationship between the canonical gospels. Lessing's theory was not totally new, but was rather a synthesis of traditional hypotheses (from early Christian authors like Papias) with observable facts:

• the original gospel (ascribed to Matthew) was composed in Hebrew [hypothesis];
• the primal gospel was used by other evangelists [hypothesis];
• the canonical gospel of Matthew was composed in Greek [fact];
• there were groups of early Jewish Christians who used a gospel (ascribed to Matthew) that differed in contents from canonical Matthew [fact].

On the basis of this information Lessing theorized that the apostle Matthew had dictated (not written) a Semitic gospel that remained in circulation among Jewish Christians for 30 years. When Christianity spread to non-Jews, this Semitic document was used as a common source for different Greek versions of the gospel. The authors of Matthew, Mark & Luke did not translate the whole original source, but merely selected some portions. Lessing thought Luke reproduced almost all of this hypothetical source.

While Lessing's hypothesis of a comprehensive primal gospel was not sustained by further research, it focused research on several key points:

• the chronological & cultural gap between Jesus & the composition of the gospels;
• the idea that existing gospels are edited versions of a source now lost;
• the idea that similarity between two works indicates an indirect literary relationship: A & B copy C without consulting each other.

The last two points are especially important for the development of the 2 source hypothesis.

[For select quotes see W. G. Kümmel, The NT: The History of the Investigation of its Problems (NY/Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1972), pp. 76-77].

Other On-line Resources:

• Gotthold Ephraim Lessing - a detailed biographical essay (Encyclopædia Britannica).
• Gotthold Ephraim Lessing - illustrated biographical essay (Wikipedia).
• The Education of the Human Race - essay published by Lessing in 1778 outlining his theory of religion as a progressive revelation for a maturing humanity (posted by Internet Archive).