Everything about Johann Albrecht Bengel totally explained
Johann Albrecht Bengel (
June 24,
1687 -
1752),
Lutheran pietist clergyman and scholar, was born at
Winnenden in
Württemberg,
Germany.
Life and career
His father died in
1693, and Bengel was educated by a friend, who became a master in the gymnasium at
Stuttgart. In 1703 Bengel left Stuttgart and entered the
university as student at the
Tübinger Stift, where, in his spare time, he devoted himself specially to the works of Aristotle and Spinoza, and in theology to those of
Philipp Spener,
Johann Arndt and
August Franke. His knowledge of the
metaphysics of
Spinoza was such that he was selected by one of the professors to prepare materials for a treatise
De Spinosismo, which was afterwards published.
After taking his degree, Bengel devoted himself to
theology. Even at this time he'd religious doubts; it's interesting in view of his later work that one cause of his perplexities was the difficulty of ascertaining the true reading of certain passages in the
Greek New Testament. In
1707 Bengel entered the ministry and was appointed to the parochial charge of Metzingen unter-Urach. In the following year he was recalled to Tübingen to undertake the office of Repetent or theological tutor. Here he remained till
1713, when he was appointed head of a seminary recently established at
Denkendorf as a preparatory school of theology.
Before entering on his new duties he travelled through the greater part of
Germany, studying the systems of education which were in use, and visiting the seminaries of the
Jesuits as well as those of the Lutheran and Reformed churches. Among other places he went to
Heidelberg and
Halle, and had his attention directed at
Heidelberg to the canons of scripture criticism published by
Gerhard von Maastricht, and at Halle to
Campeius Vitringa's
Anacrisis ad Apocalypsin. The influence exerted by these upon his theological studies is manifest in some of his works. For twenty-eight years from 1713 to 1741 he was master (
Klosterpraeceptor) of the Klosterschule at Denkendorf, a seminary for candidates for the ministry established in a former monastery of the canons of the Holy Sepulchre.
To these years, the period of his greatest intellectual activity, belong many of his chief works. In 1741 he was appointed prelate (for example General Superintendent) at
Herbrechtingen, where he remained till 1749, when he was raised to the dignity of consistorial counsellor and prelate of Alpirspach, with a residence in
Stuttgart. He now devoted himself to the discharge of his duties as a member of the consistory. A question of considerable difficulty was at that time occupying the attention of the church courts: the manner in which those who separated themselves from the church were to be dealt with, and the amount of toleration which should be accorded to meetings held in private houses for the purpose of religious edification. The civil power (the duke of Württemberg was a
Roman Catholic) was disposed to have recourse to measures of repression, while the members of the consistory, recognizing the good effects of such meetings, were inclined to concede considerable liberty. Bengel exerted himself on the side of the members of the consistory. In 1751 the university of Tübingen conferred upon him the degree of doctor of divinity.
The works on which Bengel's reputation rests as a Biblical scholar and critic are his edition of the Greek New Testament, and his
Gnomon or
Exegeticat Commentary on the same.
Greek New Testament
His edition of the Greek Testament was published at Tübingen in
1734, and at Stuttgart in the same year, but without the critical apparatus. So early as 1725, in an addition to his edition of
Chrysostoms De Sacerdotio, he'd given an account in his
Prodromus Non Testamenti Graeci recte cauteque adornandi of the principles on which his intended edition was to be based. In preparation for his work Bengel was able to avail himself of the collations of upwards of twenty manuscripts, none of them, however, of great importance, twelve of which had been collated by himself. In constituting the text, he imposed upon himself the singular restriction of not inserting any various reading which hadn't already been printed in some preceding edition of the Greek text. From this rule, however, he deviated in the case of the
Apocalypse, where, owing to the corrupt state of the text, he felt himself at liberty to introduce certain readings on manuscript authority. In the lower margin of the page he inserted a selection of various readings, the relative importance of which he denoted by the first five letters of the Greek alphabet in the following manner: α was employed to denote the reading which in his judgment was the true one, although he didn't venture to place it in the text; β, a reading better than that in the text; γ, one equal to the textual reading; and δ, readings inferior to those in the text. R Etienne's division into verses was retained in the inner margin, but the text was divided into paragraphs.
The text was followed by a critical apparatus, the first part of which consisted of an introduction to the criticism of the
New Testament, in the thirty-fourth section of which he laid down and explained his celebrated canon,
Proclivi scriptioni praestat ardua (The difficult reading is to be preferred to that which is easy), the soundness of which, as a general principle, has been recognized by succeeding critics. The second part of the critical apparatus was devoted to a consideration of the various readings, and here Bengel adopted the plan of stating the evidence both against and in favor of a particular reading, thus placing before the reader the materials for forming a judgment. Bengel was the first definitely to propound the theory of families or recensions of manuscripts.
His investigations had led him to see that a certain affinity or resemblance existed amongst many of the authorities for the Greek text manuscripts, versions, and ecclesiastical writers; that if a peculiar reading, for example, was found in one of these, it was generally found also in the other members of the same class; and this general relationship seemed to point ultimately to a common origin for all the authorities which presented such peculiarities. Although disposed at first to divide the various documents into three classes, he finally adopted a classification into two: the
African or older family of documents, and the Asiatic, or more recent class, to which he attached only a subordinate value. The theory was afterwards adopted by
JS Semler and
JJ Griesbach, and worked up into an elaborate system by the latter critic.
Bengel's labors on the text of the Greek Testament were received with great disfavour in many quarters. Like
Brian Walton and
John Mill before him, he'd to encounter the opposition of those who believed that the certainty of the word of God was endangered by the importance attached to the various readings.
JJ Wetstein, on the other hand, accused him of excessive caution in not making freer use of his critical materials. In answer to these strictures, Bengel published a
Defence of the Greek Text of His New Testament, which he prefixed to his
Harmony of the Four Gospels, published in 1736, and which contained a sufficient answer to the complaints, especially of Wetstein, which had been made against him from so many different quarters. The text of Bengel long enjoyed a high reputation among scholars, and was frequently reprinted. An enlarged edition of the critical apparatus was published by Philip David Burk in 1763.
Gnomon Novi Testamenti
The other great work of Bengel, and that on which his reputation as an exegete is mainly based, is his
Gnomon Novi Testamenti, or
Exegetical Annotations on the New Testament, published in
1742. It was the fruit of twenty years labor, and exhibits with a brevity of expression, which, it has been said, condenses more matter into a line than can be extracted from pages of other writers, the results of his study. He modestly entitled his work a
Gnomon or index, his object being rather to guide the reader to ascertain the meaning for himself, than to save him from the trouble of personal investigation. The principles of interpretation on which he proceeded were, to import nothing into Scripture, but to draw out of it everything that it really contained, in conformity with grammatico-historical rules not to be hampered by dogmatical considerations; and not to be influenced by the symbolical books. Bengel's hope that the
Gnomon would help to rekindle a fresh interest in the study of the New Testament was fully realized. It has passed through many editions, has been translated into
German and into
English, and is still one of the books most valued by expositors of the New Testament--
John Wesley made great use of it in compiling his
Expository Notes upon the New Testament (1755).
Besides the two works already described, Bengel was the editor or author of many others, classical, patristic, ecclesiastical and expository. The more important are:
Ordo Temporum, a treatise on the chronology of Scripture, in which he enters upon speculations regarding the end of the world, and an
Exposition of the Apocalypse which enjoyed for a time great popularity in Germany, and was translated into several languages.
Sources
- Oskar Wächter's J. A. Bengels Lebensabriss
- Memoir of His Life and Writings (JA Bengels Leben und Wirken), by John C. F. Burk, translated into English by Rev. R. F. Walker (London, 1837), also published as A Memoir of the Life and Writings of John Albrecht Bengel (London: R. Gladding, 1842)
- Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie
- E. Nestle, Bengelals Gelehrter (1893)
Further Information
Get more info on 'Johann Albrecht Bengel'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://johann_albrecht_bengel.totallyexplained.com">Johann Albrecht Bengel Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
