EICHHORN, Johann Gottfried (1752-1827), an eminent scholar, historian, and writer on biblical criticism, was born at Dörrenzimmern, in the duchy of Hohenlohe-Oehringen, on the 16th October 1752. Here his father was minister, but shortly after the birth of Johann he was appointed superintendent of the state school in Weikersheim. At his father’s school and at the gymnasium at Heilbronn young Eichhorn received his early education. In 1770 he entered the university of Göttingen, where he remained till 1774. In 1774 he received the rectorship of the gymnasium at Oehrdriff, and in the following year was made professor of Oriental languages at Jena. On the death of Michaelis in 1788 he was elected ordinary professor of philosophy at Göttingen, where he lectured not only on the Oriental languages and on the exegesis of the Old and New Testaments, but also on general history. In 1811 he was made doctor of theology, in 1813 jcint-director of the Royal Scientific Society of Gottingen, and in 1819 Geheimer Justizrath of Hanover. His health was shattered by an attack of inflammation of the lungs in the year 1825, but he regularly continued his prelections to a large number of students until attacked by fever on the 14th June 1827. He died on the 27th of that month. Eichhorn is the author of a good many historical works, but it is as a biblical critic that he is best known. He may almost be said to have originated the science of biblical criticism, for he first properly recognized its scope and the problems it had to solve, and began many of its most important discussions. He was the first to see the necessity of finding a firm historical foundation for everything in Christianity that was to be accepted as fact. Preliminary to his endeavours towards this end, he took for ...