David Trobisch

Trobisch served as the founding Director of Museum of the Bible. Since February 2014 to January 2015 he was Director of the Green Collection, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and from February 2015 to March 2018 he served as Director of Collections.

In a 2007 article titled Who Published the New Testament?, Trobisch postulated that the publisher of the first edition of the New Testament may well have been Polycarp, an early bishop of Smyrna in Asia Minor. Trobisch based this conclusion on a variety of factors. Firstly, Polycarp was a well-known person in the mid-second century, who held authority among proto-Catholic Christians in both Rome and Asia Minor. Secondly, Polycarp was reputed to be a disciple of John the Apostle, so his authority would have been able to add credibility to the Gospel of John and the Johannine epistles of the New Testament, which are widely believed by modern scholars not to be authentic works of John the Apostle. Thirdly, Polycarp was known to be a vocal opponent of Marcionite Christianity, which Trobisch and many other scholars take to be a major impetus for the development of the New Testament canon. Finally, Polycarp is believed to have had experience in publishing, because he distributed the first collection of the epistles of Ignatius (see Pol. Phil. 13).

Since the publication of his book The First Edition of the New Testament in 2000, Trobisch has argued against the commonly held notion that the New Testament canon developed gradually over centuries. Instead, Trobisch argues that a collection of Christian scriptures closely approximating the modern New Testament canon "was edited and published by specific people at a very specific time and at a very specific place."

From September 1996 to July 2008 he worked at the Bangor Theological Seminary, where he become Throckmorton-Hayes Professor of New Testament Language and Literature (2000-2009).

In 1982 Trobisch earned his Master of Theology from the Heidelberg University. From 1988 he holds his Doctor of Theology also from the Heidelberg University, under his advisor: Prof. Gerd Theissen with his thesis: Die Entstehung der Paulusbriefsammlung : Studien zu den Anfängen christlicher Publizistik. From 1995, Tobisch holds his Habilitation with the thesis Die Endredaktion des Neuen Testaments: eine Untersuchung zur Entstehung der christlichen Bibel from the University Heidelberg, Germany.

Trobisch went to school in Austria and after passing the Abitur, (University entrance exam) in 1976 (Matura BEA Saalfelden), he moved to Germany and also in 1976 he studied Koine Greek at Protestant Theology at Augustana Divinity School (Neuendettelsau). Trobisch also studied in Tübingen and in 1977 he studied biblical Hebrew at the Heidelberg University.

David Johannes Trobisch (born on August 18, 1958) is a German scholar whose work has focused on formation of the Christian Bible, ancient New Testament manuscripts and the epistles of Paul.