In 1751/52 the Swiss scholar J.J. Wettstein published his Novum Testamentum Graecum, which apart from a reconstruction of the text of the New Testament contains over 30,000 parallel passages from Greek and Latin literature, from the Fathers of the Church and the Rabbinic tradition. Even today these parallels prove to be a treasury of religious history of the highest value. The new revision of the source section in Halle links with the project of the ‘Corpus Hellenisticum’, in which scholars from Halle such as E. v. Dobschütz, H. Windisch and E. Klostermann played a significant role. For the work in Halle, the extant significant preliminary studies for the ‘Corpus Hellenisticum’, especially those by H. Windisch, have proved to be a fruitful resource for the New Wettstein.
The New Wettstein enables scholars to gain a better grasp of the rich links between the world of ideas in the New Testament and its contemporary context in Antiquity. With this, it is possible to demonstrate both how the authors of the New Testament are intellectually rooted in their cultural, social, intellectual and religious world and how they depart from it. The New Wettstein plays a central role in this process in two ways:
a) Firstly, the volumes of the New Wettstein provide New Testament researchers with a hitherto unavailable resource with a wealth of material and breadth of content which makes the laborious search for antique parallels significantly easier. At the same time, the New Wettstein is an important teaching resource, as the wealth of material presented with its processing of parallel text passages can easily be utilised for teaching. Students of theology and classical studies, pastors in training and teachers of religion and ethics will also be able to profit directly from the New Wettstein for their work in exegesis, as its processing of the reference passages enables the students to form their own judgment about the location of New Testament texts in their contemporary context in Antiquity.
b) It is inconceivable that a project similar to the New Wettstein can be set up in other research centres in the world. This project based in Halle is already unique on a world scale and will certainly remain so.