Edgar S. Brightman - Career

Career

Brightman was a professional philosopher who taught the subject at Nebraska Wesleyan University between 1912–1915. He then took up a post as lecturer in ethics and religion at the Wesleyan University in Connecticut from 1915–1919. Finally, he moved to Boston University in 1919 and taught philosophy there until he died in 1953. From 1925–1953 he occupied the Borden Parker Bowne chair of Philosophy.

One of his earliest publications reflected the findings of higher criticism in Old Testament studies concerning the identification of sub-sources and sub-documents within the first six books of the Bible (the Hexateuch). The Documentary Hypothesis that Brightman drew upon had developed in Nineteenth Century German Biblical studies and had received their definitive form in the writings of Julius Wellhausen. Wellhausen, and those who built on his theories, argued that the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch) were a composite creation drawing on four original sources and edited into their final form in the fourth century BC. These conclusions ran counter to the traditional Jewish and Christian position that Moses received the Pentateuch from God, with little if any further modification. Brightman was attacked for his pro-Wellhausian views by conservative and fundamentalist Methodists, and blacklisted.

In his involvement with the Methodist Church in America, Brightman joined the Methodist Federation for Social Action. He also supported conscientious objectors in war, was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and also the Committee on Peace through Justice.