Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer
1800-1873. German Protestant clergyman and NT scholar. He studied theology at the University of Jena. His chief contribution to scholarship was the internationally famous commentary series which he founded, Kritischexegetischer Kommentar über das Neuen Testament (1829ff.), which has been steadily revised and kept up to date to the present and is still the most important academic commentary of the NT. In addition to contributing the first two volumes of the series on the Greek text and German translation, he wrote commentaries on the four gospels, Acts, and eight Pauline epistles (excluding 1 and 2 Thessalonians and the Pastorals). In the introduction to the volume on the Greek text, Meyer outlined the principles of historico-grammatical exegesis as he understood them. Although it is customary to award the laurels to F.C. Baur* for founding the modern critical approach to the NT, an equal case could be made for granting the honor to Meyer. In his work one finds the application of historical criticism quite apart from the Hegelian presuppositions and antiorthodox bias of Baur and his school.