Christoph Hoffmann

Gottlieb's theological thinking was inspired by reading the works of Johann Albrecht Bengel, whose studies had led him to the conclusion that Christ would return in 1836.

An opponent of the much better known liberal theologian David Friedrich Strauss, Hoffmann was elected to the First National German Parliament, which met in Frankfurt am Main in 1848.

Initially (1854) known as the Friends of Jerusalem, the group in June 1861 formed itself into an independent Christian religious organisation known as Deutscher Tempel, its members identified themselves as Templer.

Their settlement in the Holy Land found a warm support through Wilhelm Hoffmann (*1806–1873*), who was no apostate from the official church, like his younger brother Christoph.

[4] Wilhelm Hoffmann served as one of the royal Prussian court preachers at the Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church in Berlin and was a co-founder and first president of Jerusalem's Association (German: Jerusalemsverein), a charitable organisation founded on 2 December 1852 to support Samuel Gobat's effort as bishop of the Anglo-Prussian Bishopric of Jerusalem.