Born in Berlin, Bekker completed his classical education at the University of Halle under Friedrich August Wolf, who considered him as his most promising pupil.

For several years, between 1810 and 1821, he travelled in France, Italy, England and parts of Germany, examining classical manuscripts and gathering materials for his great editorial labours.

[1] Some of the fruits of his researches were published in the Anecdota Graeca (3 vols, 1814–1821),[2] but the major results are to be found in the enormous array of classical authors edited by him.

His best known editions are those of Plato (1816–1823), Oratores Attici (1823–1824), Aristotle (1831–1836), Aristophanes (1829), and twenty-five volumes of the Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae.

[1] Bekker confined himself entirely to manuscript investigations and textual criticism; he contributed little to the extension of other types of scholarship.