Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Jerusalem was a German Lutheran theologian during the Age of Enlightenment. He was also known as "Abt Jerusalem". He was court-preacher and a major advisor to Charles I, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, to whom he suggested the foundation of the Collegium Carolinum in 1745 - this was the forerunner of the present-day TU Braunschweig. He also had a strong influence on the Duchy of Brunswick's educational policy as well as becoming one of the most important German theologians of his era. He is considered one of the heads of the German school of natural theology, which radically departed from conventional Lutheran theological dogma. His main work, "Reflections on the Noble Truths of Religion" looked into speculative-universalist philosophy of history and harmonised salvation history with the secular history of progress.
Life
Born in Osnabrück, he was the son of the town's Lutheran pastor. On his father's death in 1726, he went to study theology at Leipzig and Wittenberg, graduating with a master's degree in 1731. He then spent two years in the Dutch Republic before his return to Germany in 1734. He was given a court position in Göttingen in 1737 before spending several years in England. He then became a private tutor in the household of Friedrich von Spörcken in Hannover and then in 1742 he was summoned to the Brunswick court, where he became court preacher and tutor to the Duke's son and heir Charles William Ferdinand. In 1742 he married Martha Christina, widow of a man whose surname was Albrecht. They had five children, including Karl Wilhelm, whose 1772 suicide provided part of the inspiration for Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther. Jerusalem himself died in Brunswick and is buried in the abbey church at Riddagshausen Abbey, of which he had been made abbot in 1752.
: Betrachtungen über die vornehmsten Wahrheiten der Religion, 1768–1779, zahlreiche weitere Auflagen; 1770 franz. Übersetzung, ebenso ins Holländische und Schwedische.
Andreas Urs Sommer : Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Jerusalem: Schriften.Reprint der Schriften mit einer Einleitung von Andreas Urs Sommer.
* Band 1: Briefe über die Mosaischen Schriften und Philosophie. Betrachtungen über die vornehmsten Wahrheiten der Religion. Erster Theil. Olms-Weidmann, Hildesheim / Zürich / New York 2007,.
* Band 2: Betrachtungen über die vornehmsten Wahrheiten der Religion. Zweyter Theil. Olms-Weidmann, Hildesheim/ Zürich/ New York 2007,.
* Band 3: Betrachtungen über die vornehmsten Wahrheiten der Religion. Zweyten Theils zweyter Band oder viertes Stück. Olms-Weidmann, Hildesheim/ Zürich/ New York 2007,.
* Band 4: Nachgelassene Schriften. Erster Theil: Fortgesetzte Betrachtungen über die vornehmsten Wahrheiten der Religion. Hinterlaßne Fragmente. Olms-Weidmann, Hildesheim/ Zürich/ New York 2007,.
* Band 5: Nachgelassene Schriften. Zweyter und letzter Theil. Olms-Weidmann, Hildesheim/ Zürich/ New York 2007,.
