Fenton John Anthony Hort

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Fenton JA Hort.

Fenton John Anthony Hort (born April 23, 1828 in Dublin , † November 30, 1892 in Cambridge ) was an Irish-British, Anglican theologian. He was also interested in botany, his author's abbreviation is Hort .

Life

Hort attended rugby school from 1841 and moved to Trinity College in Cambridge in 1846 . In 1852 he was elected a member of the college and remained so until 1857. He was friends with Edward White Benson , Joseph Barber Lightfoot , Brooke Foss Westcott and FD Maurice, whom he defended publicly when he lost his chair at King's College in 1853 . Hort, Westcott and Lightfoot were also known as the "Cambridge Triumvirate". Hort was ordained a deacon in 1854 and a priest in Ely Cathedral in 1856 . Together with John Eyton Bickersteth Mayor , he published the Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology .

He married in 1857 and was vicar at St. Ippolyts in Hertfordshire for fifteen years . With the profession of parish priest, however, he did not get along; especially writing and delivering sermons was very difficult for him as a perfectionist and introverted scholar. In 1863 he suffered a nervous breakdown and did not serve as a clergyman until 1865. During this time he spent the winter in Cheltenham and in the summer in the Alps. In the summer of 1860, Hort, Westcott and Lightfoot came up with a plan for a historical-critical commentary on the whole of the New Testament. Hort only produced three smaller parts for this, which were published posthumously. In 1870 he was appointed to the committee for the revision of the New Testament of the King James Bible ( Revised Version ).

From 1871 he held the Hulsean Lectures at Cambridge University , in 1872 he became a member and lecturer of Emmanuel College and moved to Cambridge, in 1878 he became Hulsean Professor of Divinity and then from 1887 Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity until his death. He preached at the ordination of Westcott as Bishop of Durham . This sermon was so exhausting that his health deteriorated, and he has spent the past two years as a semi-invalid. He gave his last lecture in April 1892 and his last article was on Lightfoot in the Dictionary of National Biography .

Hort was an important representative of the New Testament textual criticism in the 19th century. Westcott and Hort jointly published The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881 , a Greek text edition that became the basis for many Bible translations and revisions. In terms of method, she broke new ground and revolutionized the text design of the New Testament text editions. Hort's introductory volume was published in 1896. According to his method, textual criticism consists of four steps:

  1. The search for the internal evidence of readings . This checks the internal probability and the transcriptional probability .
  2. If both are in conflict, the overall character of rival documents ( internal evidence of documents ) must be considered.
  3. One has to move on to groups of common manuscripts. Common readings mean common origin ( internal evidence of groups of manuscripts ).
  4. The existing mixed reading types lead to the necessity of a genealogical examination ( genealogical evidence ). The mixture means that the individual readings have to be viewed more or less in isolation.

Hort was not a partisan of any of the church parties, but had his own judgment, which offended him everywhere. His exaggerated perfectionism prevented him from finishing and publishing his works. He was not a specialist - he was not only an excellent text critic and New Testament scholar, but also an important church historian, philosopher and theologian who delved deep into the questions of his time.

Works

He contributed 70 articles to the Dictionary of Christian Biography , mostly on the subject of early gnosis. All of Hort's other works were published posthumously in London.

literature

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personal data
SURNAME Hort, Fenton John Anthony
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish Anglican theologian
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1828
PLACE OF BIRTH Dublin
DATE OF DEATH November 30, 1892
Place of death Cambridge