Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Monday, October 21, 2013

20 Oct 1802: Mr. (Rev. Dr. Prof.) Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg Born

20 October 1802.  Mr. Hengstenberg was born.
One of the "heavy hitters" in 19th century Old Testament scholarship. Although Mr. (Dr. Prof.) Hengstenberg read and understood Mr. Schleiermacher’s Glaubenslehre, Mr. Hengstengberg said, "I shall never betake myself to him."  This rebuff of Mr. Schleiermacher by Mr. Hengstenberg,  reminds me of Mr. Karl Barth’s rebuff as well. Mr. Barth purchased each semester a bust of Mr. Schleiermacher. At the end of the semester full of attacks on Mr. Schleiermacher by Mr. Barth, he would wave his hand, hit the bust, and dash the bust into small pieces on the floor. Perhaps we'll review Mr. Schleiermacher, but for now, a few notes, musings and engagements with this scholarly OT Churchman, a Confessional Lutheran.
Ernst Wilhelm Theodor Herrmann Hengstenberg (October 20, 1802, Fröndenberg – May 28, 1869, Berlin), was a German Lutheran churchman and neo-Lutheran theologian.

He was born at Frondenberg, a Westphalian village, and was educated by his father, who was a minister of the Reformed Church and head of the Frondenberg convent of canonesses (Fräuleinstift). Entering the University of Bonn in 1819, Hengstenberg attended the lectures of Georg Wilhelm Freytag for Oriental languages and of Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler for church history, but his energies were principally devoted to philosophy and philology, and his earliest publication was an edition of the Arabic Mu'allaqat of Imru' al-Qais, which gained for him a prize at his graduation in the philosophical faculty. This was followed in 1824 by a German translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics.

Finding himself without the means to complete his theological studies under Johann August Wilhelm Neander and Friedrich August Tholuck in Berlin, he accepted a post at Basel as tutor in Oriental languages to Johann Jakob Stähelin ( 1797–1875 ), later a professor at the university. It was that he began to direct his attention to a study of the Bible, which led him to a conviction, not only of the divine character of evangelical religion, but also of the unapproachable adequacy of its expression in the Augsburg Confession. In 1824 he joined the philosophical faculty of the University of Berlin as a Privatdozent, and in 1825 he became a licentiate in theology, his theses being remarkable for their evangelical fervor and for their emphatic protest against every form of "rationalism", especially in questions of Old Testament criticism.

In 1826 he became professor extraordinarius in theology; and in July 1827 took on the editorship of the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, a strictly orthodox journal, which in his hands acquired an almost unique reputation as a controversial organ. It did not become well-known until in 1830 an anonymous article (by Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach) appeared, which openly charged Wilhelm Gesenius and Julius Wegscheider with infidelity and profanity, and on the ground of these accusations advocated the interposition of the civil power, thus giving rise to the prolonged Hallische Streit. In 1828 the first volume of Hengstenberg's Christologie das Alten Testaments passed through the press; in the autumn of that year he became professor ordinarius in theology, and in 1829 doctor of theology.

Main works

Plaque with dates of the family Hengstenberg in Neuruppin-Radensleben, Brandenburg, Germany.
  • Christologie des Alten Testaments (1829–1835; 2nd ed., 1854–1857; Eng. trans. by R Keith, 1835–1839, also in Clark's Foreign Theological Library, by T Meyer and J Martin, 1854–1858), a work of much learning the estimate of which varies according to the hermeneutical principle of the individual critic
·         English translation in (Google Books)
  • Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Alte Testament (1831–1839); Eng. trans., Dissertations on the Genuineness of Daniel, and the Integrity of Zechariah (Edin., 1848), and Dissertation on the Genuineness of the Pentateuch (Edin., 1847), in which the traditional view on each question is strongly upheld, and much capital is made of the absence of harmony among the negative
·         English translation in (Google Books for Vol. 1) (Google Books for Vol. 2)
·         English translation in (Google Books)
  • Die Bücher Moses und Aegypten (1841)
·         English translation in (Google Books)
  • Die Geschichte Bileams u. seiner Weissagungen (1842; translated along with the Dissertations on Daniel and Zechariah) 
  • Commentar über die Psalmen (1842–1847; 2nd ed., 1849–1852; Eng. trans. by P Fairbain and J Thomson, Edin., 1844–1848), which shares the merit and defects of the Christologie
·         English translation in (Google Books for Vol. 1) (Google Books for Vol. 2) (Google Books for Vol. 3)
  • Die Offenbarung Johannis erläutert (1849–1851; 2nd ed., 1861–1862; Eng. trans. by P. Fairbairn also in Clark's " Foreign Theological Library," 1851-1852)
·         English translation in (Google Books for Vol. 1) (Google Books for Vol. 2)
  • Das Hohe Lied ausgelegt (1853)
  • Der Prediger Salomo ausgelegt (1859)
·         English translation in (Google Books)
  • Das Evangelium Johannis erläutert (1861–1863; 2nd ed., 1867-1871 Eng. trans., 1865)
  • Die Weissagungen das Propheten Ezechiel erläutert (1867–1868).
·         English translation in (Google Books)
Of minor importance are:
  • De rebus Tyrioruz commentatio academica (1832)
  • Uber den Tag des Herrn (1852)
  • Da Passe, ein Vortrag (1853)
  • Die Opfer der heiligen Schrift (1859)
Several series of papers also, as, for example:
  • "The Retentio of the Apocrypha,"
  • "Freemasonry" (1854)
  • "Duelling" (1856)
  • "The Relation between the Jews and the Christian Church" (1857; 2nd ed., 1859), which originally appeared in the Kirchenzeitung, were afterwards printed in a separate form.
Posthumously published:
  • Geschichte des Reiches Gottes unter dem Alten Bunde (1869–1871)
  • Das Buch Hiob erläutert (1870–1875)
  • Vorlesungen über die Leidensgeschichte

References


External links


Hengstenberg and His Influence on German Protestantism The Methodist Review 1862, vol. XLIV, p. 108

No comments: