Karl Ludwig Schmidt
Karl Ludwig Schmidt (5 February 1891 – 10 January 1956) was a German Protestant theologian and a professor of New Testament studies at the University of Basel. He argued that the New Testament stories are fixed written versions of older oral traditions. In his 1919 book Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesu, he claimed that Mark invented the chronology of Jesus. Using form criticism, he showed editors arranged scenes without a real chronological order. This idea challenged the ability to prove a historical Jesus and led to decades of waning interest in that topic.
Schmidt taught New Testament studies at Giessen (1921–1925), Jena (1925–1929), and Bonn (1929–1933). He was dismissed by the Nazi regime in September 1933 for resisting the Aryan Paragraph. He then worked in church administration in Switzerland (1933–1935). From 1935 to 1953 he was a professor in Basel.
He served as editor of Theologische Blätter (1922–1937) and of Theologische Zeitschrift (1945–1953). He wrote the article on the meaning of the Greek word ekklesia (church) for the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.
After his death, Karl Barth wrote of him in 1959: "K. L. Schmidt, far superior to me in both learning and pugnacity, but always so stimulating."
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 09:35 (CET).