[1] His school career included a period at St. Lorenz, Nuremberg where he acquired an early interest in Oriental languages,[3] on which he was able to build after 1772 when he moved on to the University of Altdorf.
Here he studied both Theology and, possibly with even greater enthusiasm, Oriental Languages under the noted orientalist Johann Andreas Michael Nagel.
[3] In 1789, following the death in 1788 of Johann Andreas Michael Nagel, Bauer was appointed to succeed the mentor from his university days at Altdorf as Professor for Eloquence/Rhetoric, Oriental Languages and Morality.
[1] Heidelberg was being combined into a new Grand Duchy of Baden and Bauer's appointment came as part of a larger reconfiguration of the city's venerable university.
[3] His position was that a critical elimination of anything mystical or legendary would bring to light the essential timeless truth of the core universality of the bible.