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Jakob was born a Jew. He coverted to Christianity. When Jakob was growing up in the Rheingau, a man by the name of Konrad Marius saw that he was gifted and paid for Jakob's education.

He studied in Neuhaussen and Heidelberg. In Heidelberg, Jakob became a teacher of oriental studies in 1580, and studied further with Thomas Kraft, Professor of Medicine, in Basel Switzerland.

As a Calvinist, Jakob could not conform to the concordat-formulary set down by the Lutheran Elector Ludwig VI and was forced to leave Heidelberg.

He traveled and studied in Basel, Vienna, Prag, and Breslau, before returning to Neustadt, Pfalz, where he taught at the Reformed School under Johann Casimir in 1582.

_{Picture of Casmir School from: Geschichte Der Pfalz by Karl Moersch}

After the death of Ludwig, Jakob Christmann returned to Heidelberg and was appointed Professor of Hebrew on 18 June 1584. From 1591 on, Jakob taught Aristotelian logic. He was made the rector of Heidelberg University in 1602.

In 1608, Frederick IV appointed Jakob Christmann professor of Arabic, thus making him only the second teacher on that subject in Europe. Besides Arabic, Jakob knew Syrian, Chaldaic, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish.

On the death of Valentine Otho, Jakob Christmann inherited the entire library of G.J. Rhaeticus, as well as the original manuscript of Nicholas Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, the first document claiming that the planets revolve around the sun. Jakob Christmann was also an astronomer. He wrote a letter to Johannes Kepler in 1613.