He was educated at the universities of Kiel (1814) and Berlin (1816), where he was influenced by Schleiermacher and Neander.

[1] In 1817 he was awarded the prize at the Festival of the Reformation[2] for an essay, Melanchthons Charakteristik aus seinen Briefen dargestellt (1818).

This essay brought him to the notice of the Prussian Minister of Public Worship, and in 1820 he became Privatdozent at Berlin.

He had prepared for it by his other works, Die Echtheit der vier kanonischen Evangelien, aus der Geschichte der zwei ersten Jahrhunderte erwiesen (The veracity of the four canonical Gospels demonstrated from the history of the first two centuries, 1823), Ein Wort über tieferen Schriftsinn (1824) and Die biblische Schriftauslegung (1825).

[1] In the latter two works, he presents his method of exegesis, and rejects the doctrine of verbal inspiration.