Martin Dibelius was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 theologian and a professor for the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

 at the University of Heidelberg.
Martin Dibelius was born in Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, Germany in 1883. With Rudolf Bultmann

Rudolf Bultmann

Rudolf Karl Bultmann was a German theologian of Lutheran background, who was for three decades professor of New Testament studies at the University of Marburg...

, he helped define a period in research about the historical Jesus

Quest for the Historical Jesus

The quest for the historical Jesus is the attempt to use historical rather than religious methods to construct a verifiable biography of Jesus. As originally defined by Albert Schweitzer, the quest began in the 18th century with Hermann Samuel Reimarus, up to William Wrede in the 19th century...

 characterized by skepticism toward the possibility of describing Jesus with historical authority

Historical Jesus

The term historical Jesus refers to scholarly reconstructions of the 1st-century figure Jesus of Nazareth. These reconstructions are based upon historical methods including critical analysis of gospel texts as the primary source for his biography, along with consideration of the historical and...

. In this capacity he is often considered one of the pioneers along with Bultmann of New Testament form criticism

Form criticism

Form criticism is a method of biblical criticism that classifies units of scripture by literary pattern and that attempts to trace each type to its period of oral transmission. Form criticism seeks to determine a unit's original form and the historical context of the literary tradition. Hermann...

, a highly analytical review of literary forms within the New Testament. Studying at multiple universities he eventually found himself New Testament exegesis and criticism at Heidelberg University,one of the world's oldest established centers of study. He is well known for portraying Jesus'

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 Sermon on the Mount

Sermon on the Mount

The Sermon on the Mount is a collection of sayings and teachings of Jesus, which emphasizes his moral teaching found in the Gospel of Matthew...

 as reflecting ideals that are impossible to live up to in this fallen world. He died in Heidelberg

Heidelberg

-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...

in 1947.

Works

• Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur, 1. 1. Evangelium und Apocalypse, Berlin/Leipzig 1926