Nestle was a son of the upper tribunal procurator (Obertribunalprokurator) Christian Gottlieb Nestle and his wife Sophie Beate Kleinmann. His half-brother from his father's second marriage was classical philologist Wilhelm Nestle.
Nestle studied at the University of Tübingen – the Tübinger Stift – from 1869 to 1874. His studies culminated in his doctoral thesis on the Hebrew and Greek text forms of the Book of Ezekiel. Afterwards he worked in the area of orientalism and wrote, among other things, a Syriac grammar. During his later years, his focus changed to textual criticism of the New Testament.[1]
In 1880, he married Klara Kommerell (1852–87) in Tübingen; they had one son, Erwin Nestle. In 1887 his wife died after a short illness, and three years later, in 1890, Nestle married Elisabeth Aichele (1867–1944). In this second marriage, five daughters and one son were born.
After the death of Eberhard Nestle his son Erwin Nestle (1883–1972) took over the publication and contributed substantially to a constant improvement of the editions.[3] Since 1952 the edition occurred with the cooperation of Kurt Aland (21st edition).[2] The theological standard work "Nestle-Aland" appeared from 1993 in the 27th edition.
"Bibliography of Eberhard Nestle", Catalogue (in German), DE: Deutschen Nationalbibliothek, archived from the original on 2016-03-03, retrieved 2010-03-14.