SEMLER, JOFIANN SALOMO German church historian and biblical critic, was born at Saalfeld in Thuringia on Dec. 18, 1725, the son of a clergyman in poor cir cumstances. He grew up amidst pietistic surroundings, which powerfully influenced him his life through, though he never be came a Pietist. In his seventeenth year he entered the university of Halle, where he became the disciple, afterwards the assistant, and at last the literary executor of the orthodox rationalistic professor S. J. Baumgarten (1706-1757). In 1749 he became editor, with the title of professor, of the Coburg official Gazette.
But in 1751 he was invited to Altdorf as professor of philology and history, and in 1752 he became a professor of theology in Halle. After the death of Baumgarten (1757) Semler became the head of the theological faculty of his university, and the fierce opposition which his writings and lectures provoked only helped to increase his fame as a professor. His popularity continued un diminished for more than 20 years, until 1779. In that year he came forward with a reply (Beantwortung der Fragmente eines Ungenannten) to the Wolfenbiittel Fragmente (see REIMARUS) and to K. F. Bahrdt's confession of faith, a step which was in terpreted by the extreme rationalists as a revocation of his own rationalistic position. Even the Prussian Government, which
favoured Bahrdt, made Semler painfully feel its displeasure at this new but really not inconsistent aspect of his position. But, though Semler was really not inconsistent with himself in attack ing the views of Reimarus and Bahrdt, his popularity began from that year to decline, and towards the end of his life he felt the necessity of emphasizing the apologetic and conservative value of true historical inquiry. He died at Halle on March 14, 1791, worn out and disappointed at the issue of his work.
Semler was a pioneer in the criticism of the traditional canon of Scripture, in the search for the origins of the books of the New Testament, and in Church history.
Tholuck gives 171 as the number of Semler's works, of which only two reached a second edition, and' none is now read for its own sake.