Zöckler, OTTO, theologian, was born at Grünberg in Hesse, May 27, 1833, studied at Giessen, Erlangen, and Berlin (1851-56), became privat-docent at Giessen in 1857, and professor extraordinary in 1863, and obeyed a call in 1866 to Greifswald. He edited the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung (from 1882) and other religious serials.
Among his books are a history of asceticism (1863), Die Evangelienkritik und das Lebensbild Christi (1865), several sections of Lange's Bibelwerk (1866-72), Das Kruz Christi (1875; Eng. trans. 1877), Theologie und Naturwissenschaft (2 vols. 1877-79), and Gottes Zeugen im Reiche der Natur (2 vols. 1881; Eng. trans. 1886). He edited, and partly wrote, the well-known Handbuch der theologischen Wissenschaften in encyklopädischer Darstellung (3 vols. 1883-84; 3d ed. 4 vols. 1889-90), and, together with Strack, a Kurzeßaster Kommentar to Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha (1886 et seq.).