Eduard Rupprecht

Eduard Rupprecht

Gottlieb Friedrich Eduard Rupprecht (* March 2, 1837 in Azendorf in Upper Franconia ; † July 2, 1907 in Sausenhofen in Middle Franconia , today part of the Dittenheim parish ) was a German Lutheran pastor who made a name for himself with the writing of apologetic theological writings.

biography

Rupprecht studied at the University of Erlangen , where he was particularly influenced by the theology professors Franz Delitzsch , Theodosius Harnack and Johann Christian Konrad von Hofmann . He worked as a vicar in Fürth and was subsequently unable to work for several years due to a nervous problem. He emerged from this “furnace of great tribulation” - as he called it - as a decidedly conservative theologian who saw doubts in faith and skepticism as the cause of his mental illness. The little resilient Rupprecht spent his further life as a village pastor in Wallesau near Roth and in Sausenhofen, but developed a literary activity from the beginning of the 1890s that made him known nationwide. Because of this commitment, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Lutheran faculty of Capital University in Columbus , Ohio and appointed to the church council of his own Bavarian regional church. The first and second edition of the lexicon Religion in Past and Present contained a biographical entry on Rupprecht. With his membership in the Bible Association founded in 1894, Rupprecht networked with like-minded conservative theologians and pastors. Rupprecht died in 1907 in Sausenhofen , a current district of Dittenheim ( Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen district ).

plant

Fighting religious doubts and skepticism was the maxim of Rupprecht's literary effectiveness. His writings, some of which were published by C. Bertelsmann , were attempts to refute the criticism of the Bible , as practiced by the Wellhausen School and Adolf von Harnack (he knew the latter as the little boy in the house of his Erlangen professor Theodosius Harnack). Rupprecht's attacks on the historical-critical handling of the Bible were welcomed by the pastors, but hardly taken seriously in academic circles. It was only later that it became apparent that Rupprecht had anticipated many points of criticism that were put forward against Wellhausen and Harnack even by respected theologians in the 20th century.

Monographs :

Title page of one of Rupprecht's works

• What is truth Or: Popular forays into the unbelief of our time for sincere souls from all people, Nuremberg Vol. I 1875 / Vol. II / 1 1876 / Vol. II / 2 1877.
• Wellhausen's critical school of the Pentateuch. Your value and the way to the Church's self-assertion towards her - a scientifically founded testimony of faith to the present, especially our young theological generation, Erlangen / Leipzig 1893.
• The end of this world course. As an introduction to the New Testament prophecy presented to the friends of the prophetic word in the community, Munich 1894.
• The pseudodaniel and pseudojesaja of modern criticism in front of the forum of Christian faith, morality and science: a testimony of faith for the self-assertion of the church against the addiction to doubt on the basis of the A. Testament, Erlangen / Leipzig 1894.
• The riddle of the book of five Moses and its wrong solution. A series of critical individual examinations and testimonies - A contribution to the solution of a burning biblical question of time with detailed consideration of the source separation by Dr. Strack, Gütersloh 1894.
• Privy Councilor Prof. Dr. v. Frank. A word of thankful memory for his students and admirers, 1894 (obituary).
• The solution to the riddle or contributions to the correct solution of the Pentateuch riddle for the Christian faith and science, Gütersloh Vol. I 1895, Vol. II / 1 1896, Vol. II / 2 1897.
• Light in the dark. Sketches from the life of a South German theologian in novella form, Cottbus 1897 (under the pseudonym Ed [mund]. Timotheus).
• Criticism according to its right and wrong: A fundamental illumination of the critical method with illustrations from German criticism and Dr. Drivers "Introduction", Gütersloh 1897.
• Declared German Volksbibel in a common interpretation and application with an apologetic tendency, ed. by E. Rupprecht with the assistance of Karl Buchrucker , Karl Burger u. a., Hannover 1897, 3rd edition 1913.
• Scientific manual for the introduction to the Old Testament, Gütersloh 1898.
• What is dying? Two lectures on the death of Christians, Neuendettelsau 1900.
• Christianity by D. Ad. Harnack after his sixteen lectures. An investigation and a testimony to the Church of the Presence of all denominations, Gütersloh 1901.
• Human thoughts and thoughts of God. Critical observations of time as a testimony to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the present, Neuendettelsau 1901.

family

Three other church personalities can be counted among the descendants of Rupprecht. His son Johannes Rupprecht became known through his research on the Bavarian senior consistory president Hermann Bezzel . The grandson Eduard Putz (1907–1990), first theological assistant in the regional church office in Munich under regional bishop Hans Meiser , then dean in Erlangen, is controversial today mainly because of his role in the church struggle. Another grandson, Walter Rupprecht (1918–2007), worked as a lecturer at the Augustana University in Neuendettelsau and as district dean in Augsburg .

literature

• Gerhard Gronauer, 'Sword out! Blown! ' The life of Eduard Rupprecht (1837–1907) and his struggle for the Holy Scriptures. In: Journal for Bavarian Church History 70 (2001), 162–179.
• Stephan Holthaus , Fundamentalism in Germany. The struggle for the Bible in Protestantism of the 19th and 20th centuries, Bonn 1993 (Biblia et Symbiotica 1).
• Thomas Hübner, Adolf von Harnack's lectures on the essence of Christianity with special consideration of the questions of method as an appropriate approach to its Christology and history of effects, Frankfurt am Main 1994 (EHS.T 493).
• Gerhard Gronauer:  Rupprecht, Eduard. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 19, Bautz, Nordhausen 2001, ISBN 3-88309-089-1 , Sp. 1173-1183.

Web links

• Literature by and about Eduard Rupprecht in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See also Carsten Nicolaisen : "Our leader's very faithful opposition" (Part 1), in: Sonntagsblatt, No. 41/2004 of October 10, 2004