[1] Jan N. Bremmer was born during the World War II in 1944 in Groningen, Netherlands.
[2] Bremmer studied Classics and Spanish at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (1962–1970) and the University of Bristol (1969–1970).
[2] During 1972–74, Bremmer taught Classics at Christelijk Streeklyceum (Christian Regional Lyceum) in Ede, Netherlands.
In 1979, he obtained a Ph.D. from the Vrije Universiteit with a dissertation on The Early Greek Conception of the Soul (published by Princeton University Press in 1983).
In his farewell lecture in January 2010, he discussed the rise of Christianity through the eyes of scholars Edward Gibbon, Adolf von Harnack and Rodney Stark.