Brooke Foss Westcott

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Brooke Foss Westcott

Brooke Foss Westcott (born January 12, 1825 in Birmingham , † July 27, 1901 in Auckland Castle , Durham ) was an English theologian and from 1890 Anglican Bishop of Durham .

Early life and education

He received his education from 1837 to 1844 at the King Edward VI School in Birmingham under the rector James Prince Lee (1804-1869), later Bishop of Manchester . Lee later ordained him and he was his role model. In 1844 he went to Trinity College in Cambridge, in 1849 he was elected member and stayed there until 1869. In 1851 he was ordained a deacon and in the same year on December 21 a priest. Westcott taught from 1852 to 1869 at Harrow School under the then principal Charles John Vaughan (1816-1897), and he was a friend of Edward White Benson . Fenton John Anthony Hort became a particularly close friend . He married in 1852.

Teaching

As a New Testament scholar and philologist, he took up the methods of the Evangelical Tübingen School around 1860 together with Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828–1889) and Hort and developed a historical-critical method of biblical research. The three men Hort, Westcott and Lightfoot were also known as the "Cambridge Triumvirate". On November 1, 1870, he was elected as Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge . He held this chair until 1890, when he became Bishop of Durham, succeeding Lightfoot. Despite his duties as a professor and working on the Commission for the Revised Version, he was strongly active as a pastor and preacher. He did not have a full pastoral position, but served as Canon of Peterborough and Westminster, London from 1869 to 1890. He was also Examining Chaplain in Peterborough , London and Canterbury.

He commented on the ecclesiastical and political issues of his time and on the social question . He is considered one of the co-founders of the Christian Social Union, which was founded in Durham in 1889, and mediated a strike of 10,000 miners in 1892, which resulted in immense costs. Lord Salisbury prevented his election as Archbishop of York because of these "socialist tendencies". Westcott was involved in the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel", a missionary society that was active in India. Four of his sons became missionaries there, two of whom were appointed bishops, and son Arthur Westcott wrote his biography. Westcott was a member of the Cambridge Apostles .

Bible edition The New Testament in the Original Greek

In 1853 he reached an agreement with Fenton John Anthony Hort that they wanted to revise Lachmann's work and prepare a new edition of the Greek New Testament. In 1881 he and Hort published his text edition The New Testament in the Original Greek , which heralded the end of the Textus receptus in modern text editions.

controversy

Some American fundamentalists have denounced Westcott and Hort's Greek scriptures as corrupt. Most of these critics include the "King James Only movement" ( Only the King James motion ) to. The "King James Only" author Gail Riplinger mentions him in her book New Age Bible Versions, in which she accuses von Westcott of dealing with occult matters.

Westcott himself replied: "Many years ago I had the opportunity to study" spiritistic "phenomena with the greatest care, and at that time I came to a definite resolution which I must express in response to your accusation. The scriptures are here, as in Our Supreme Leader for all spiritual questions. I found that the spiritual gifts are often found in the Bible, but I never gave the slightest encouragement to seek these (spiritualistic phenomena). In fact, the case is very different. I can Therefore it is no different than to regard any voluntary interaction with beings such as those who communicate via a human being as a medium as contrary to the Scriptures and dangerous.In rebirth (through God) I find everything that a person (as far as I can see) comes to life and needed for hope. "

Works

Incomplete list of the most important works

Web links and literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Vincent Henry Stanton, Westcott, Brooke Foss in the Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement on Wikisource.
  2. ^ GA Riplinger: New Age Bible Versions . AV Publications, 1993, ISBN 978-0-9635845-0-2 .
  3. ↑ The answer to: "Only the King James Movement" (Westcott BF July 1893) "The Response to the Appeal"
predecessor Office successor
James Amiraux Jeremie Regius Professorship of Divinity
1870–1890 		Henry Barclay Swete
predecessor Office successor
Joseph Barber Lightfoot Bishop of Durham
1890-1901 		Handley Moule
personal data
SURNAME Westcott, Brooke Foss
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British theologian and Bishop of Durham
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1825
PLACE OF BIRTH Birmingham
DATE OF DEATH July 27, 1901
Place of death Auckland Castle , Durham