He was born in Dresden and spent his formative years in Jerusalem, where between 1910 and 1918 his father, Friedrich Jeremias (1868–1945), worked as Provost of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer.
After other teaching assignments, Jeremias was appointed in 1935 to the chair of New Testament studies at the Georg-August University of Göttingen, where he taught until his retirement in 1968.
His research and publications covered a wide field, ranging from historical and archaeological to literary and philosophical studies.
They concentrate on the Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic texts relevant for a critical analysis of the New Testament in order to reconstruct the historical environment of Jesus in all its complexity, to provide a deeper understanding of his life and teachings.
[2] Finally, in 1970 he was made an honorary fellow of the Deutsche Verein zur Erforschung Palästinas (German association for research on Palestine).