Johann Albrecht Bengel - Life and Career

Life and Career

Bengel was born at Winnenden in Württemberg. Due to the death of his father in 1693, he was educated by a family friend, David Wendel Spindler, who became a master in the gymnasium at Stuttgart. In 1703 Bengel left Stuttgart and entered the University of Tübingen as a student at the Tübinger Stift, where, in his spare time, he devoted himself especially to the works of Aristotle and Spinoza, and, in theology, to those of Philipp Spener, Johann Arndt and August Francke. His knowledge of the metaphysics of Spinoza was such that he was selected by one of the professors to prepare materials for a treatise, De Spinosismo, which was afterwards published.

After acquiring his degree, Bengel devoted himself to theology. Even at this time he had religious doubts; it is interesting in view of his later work that one cause of his perplexities was the difficulty of ascertaining the true reading of certain passages in the Greek New Testament. In 1707 Bengel entered the ministry and was appointed to the parochial charge of Metzingen-unter-Urach. In the following year he was recalled to Tübingen to undertake the office of Repetent (theological tutor).

He remained at Tübingen until 1713, when he was appointed head of a seminary recently established at Denkendorf as a preparatory school of theology. Before entering into his new duties he travelled through the greater part of Germany, studying the systems of education which were in use, and visiting the seminaries of the Jesuits as well as those of the Lutheran and Reformed churches. Among other places he went to Heidelberg and Halle, and had his attention directed at Heidelberg to the canons of scripture criticism published by Gerhard von Maastricht, and at Halle to Campeius Vitringa's Anacrisis ad Apocalypsin. The influence exerted by these upon his theological studies is manifest in some of his works.

For 28 years, from 1713 to 1741, he was master (German: Klosterpraeceptor) of the Klosterschule at Denkendorf, a seminary for candidates for the ministry established in a former monastery of the canons of the Holy Sepulchre. To these years, the period of his greatest intellectual activity, belong many of his chief works.

In 1741 he was appointed prelate (i.e. general superintendent) at Herbrechtingen, where he remained till 1749, when he was raised to the dignity of consistorial counsellor and prelate of Alpirsbach, with a residence in Stuttgart. He devoted himself to the discharge of his duties as a member of the consistory. A question of considerable difficulty was at that time occupying the attention of the church courts: the manner in which those who separated themselves from the church were to be dealt with, and the amount of toleration which should be accorded to meetings held in private houses for the purpose of religious edification. The civil power (the duke of Württemberg was a Roman Catholic) was disposed to have recourse to measures of repression, while the members of the consistory, recognizing the good effects of such meetings, were inclined to concede considerable liberty. Bengel exerted himself on the side of the members of the consistory. In 1751 the university of Tübingen conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity.

Bengel carried on an 18-year-long controversy with Nicolaus Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf, leader of the Moravian Brethren from Herrnhut in Saxony. This led to a break between the Moravian Brethren and the dour Pietism typical of Wuerttemberg, represented by Bengel. With his determined certainty giving him systematic insight into the divine Plan of Salvation, Bengel dogmatically opposed the dynamic, ecumenical, missionary efforts of Zinzendorf, who was indifferent to all dogmatism and intolerance. As Bengel did not hesitate to manipulate historical calendars in his chiliasm attempts to predict the end of the world, Zinzendorf rejected this as superstitious “interpretation of signs.”

The works on which Bengel's reputation rests as a Biblical scholar and critic are his edition of the Greek New Testament, and his Gnomon or Exegeticat Commentary on the same.