Charles Augustus Briggs

Charles Augustus Briggs

Charles Augustus Briggs (born January 15, 1841 in New York City , † June 8, 1913 ibid) was an American theologian , distinguished, early representative of the historical-critical method and ordained pastor , first in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America and then, after being convicted of heresy there , in the Episcopal Church .

Life

Briggs was born to Alanson Briggs and Sarah Mead Berrian.

Briggs studied mainly at the University of Virginia (1857-1860). In 1863 he graduated from Union Theological Seminary and then went to the University of Berlin . He was then from 1869 to 1874 pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Roselle in New Jersey and from 1874 to 1891 professor of Jewish languages ​​at the Union Theological Seminary. From 1891 to 1904 he was professor of theological encyclopaedia and symbolics . From 1880 to 1890 he wrote for the Presbyterian Review .

Based on statements in his inaugural lecture on January 20, 1891, he was accused and charged by the New York Presbytery of heresy in 1892. In brief the indictment read:

• that he had taught that reason and the Church are each a fountain of divine authority which apart from Holy Scripture may and does savingly enlighten men (he taught that reason and the Church are each a source of divine authority that, alongside Scripture, are men can enlighten saving)
• that errors may have existed in the original text of the Holy Scripture (there could have been errors in the original text of the Holy Scripture )
• thatmany of the Old Testament predictions have been reversed by history and did the great body of Messianic prediction hasnt and can not be Fulfilled (many of the predictions of the Old Testament were made retrospectively by history, and most of the Messianic prophecies did not come true and could not come true either)
• that Moses is not the author of the Pentateuch , and that Isaiah is not the author of half of the book which bears his name (Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch , and Isaiah was not the author of half of the book that bears his name )
• that the processes of redemption extend to the world to come he had considered it a fault of Protestant theology that it limits redemption to this world and that sanctification is not complete at death (that the processes of redemption will also be effective in the world to come, and sanctification is not already completed with death)

Briggs was suspended from the rectory in 1893 on charges made by the General Assembly . The assembly is believed to have been influenced by Briggs' habit and tone; His colleagues at Union Theological Seminary also found his introductory lecture there “dogmatic and irritating”.

The case was considered sensational and led to the independence of the Union Theological Seminary from the Presbyterian Church.

In 1899 Briggs was ordained as a priest of the Episcopal Church. In 1884 Briggs received an honorary doctorate (DD) in theology from the University of Edinburgh, in 1901 from the University of Glasgow, and in 1901 the Litt.D. Oxford University.

Together with Francis Brown and Samuel Rolles Driver Briggs published a revised Hebrew-English dictionary (1891 to 1905, known under the abbreviation BDB ), which was based on the lexicon of Wilhelm Gesenius . Together with Samuel Rolles Driver, he edited the International Commentary Series on the books of the Bible.

Works

• Biblical Study: Its Principles, Methods and History (1883)
• Hebrew Poems of the Creation (1884)
• American Presbyterianism: Its Origin and Early History (1885)
• Messianic Prophecy (1886)
• Whither? A Theological Question for the Times (1889)
• Biblical history (1889, digitized version )
• The Authority of the Holy Scripture (1891)
• The Bible, the Church and the Reason (1892)
• The Higher Criticism of the Hexateuch (1893)
• The Messiah of the Gospels (1894)
• The Messiah of the Apostles (1894)
• New Light on the Life of Jesus (1904)
• The Ethical Teaching of Jesus (1904)
• A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Psalms (with the support of his daughter; 2 editions: 1906, 1907)
• The Virgin Birth of Our Lord (1909)

literature

• Mark S. Massa: “Mediating Modernism”: Charles Briggs, Catholic Modernism, and an Ecumenical “Plot” . In: The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 81, No. 4 (Oct., 1988), pp. 413-430.
• Johannes Wischmeyer: Transatlantic Exchange Processes in Protestantism of the 19th Century. In: European History Online , ed. from the Leibniz Institute for European History , Mainz 2011, accessed on: November 11, 2011.