Benjamin Wisner Bacon

Background

He was born on January 15, 1860 at Litchfield, Connecticut. His father came from Michael, a founder of Dedham, Massachussets, 1640, and his mother from Nathaniel, one of the founders of Middletown, Connecticut, of whom an ancestor was a cousin of Lord Francis Bacon.

Education

Bacon was educated in private schools in New Haven, and for five years (1872 - 77) in Europe: two years in a Gymnasium in Coburg, Germany, and three years in the Collège de Genève, Switzerland. He graduated from Yale University with the degree of A. B. in 1881, and that of B. D. in 1884.

Career

A moderate skill with the violin acquired abroad enabled him to earn money for his theological course by teaching and giving concerts. Ordained a Congregational minister at Old Lyme, Connecticut, June 12, 1884, he was pastor there, 1884-89; and in Oswego, 1889-96. He was appointed instructor in the New Testament at the Yale Divinity School in 1896, and a year later became Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation. In 1928 he retired at the prescribed age limit of sixty-eight and was professor emeritus until his death. He was resident director of the American School of Oriental Study at Jerusalem, 1905-06, and as a result of the friendships he made was able to obtain in 1928 permission for the Yale excavations at Gerasa. During his two pastorates he became greatly interested in the higher criticism of the Pentateuch, especially in the work of Kuenen, Wellhausen, and Robertson Smith, and was convinced of the truth and importance of the reconstruction of the history of the religion of Israel that resulted from their studies.

Bacon began his New Testament teaching at Yale with the hope that he could carry forward toward a more decisive conclusion the analysis of the Gospels, the recovery of their sources and their composition, and bring about a nearer approach to that goal of the Christian historian's endeavors, the knowledge of the historical Jesus, and so of the beginnings of the Christian religion. The "higher criticism" in this particular application of it was the subject of his studies, his teaching, and his writing from the beginning to the end of his career of thirty-six years at Yale. The phrase "higher criticism" as defining the method of the historical study of the Gospels has been less used since Dibelius introduced the term Formgeschichte in 1919. Bacon, however, when in the last year of his life he wrote his contribution to Contemporary American Theology: Theological Autobiographies (post), chose as the summary of his life work as a theologian the title, "Enter the Higher Criticism. " The phrase, however, meant to him not only literary analysis and the recovery of sources, but also the study of the background and motive of each of the four Gospels and of their sources, and had for its ultimate aim nothing less than the recovery of the historical Jesus and of his significance for the beginnings of Christianity. The originality and importance of his studies can hardly be better seen than by comparing sentences in the preface of his Beginnings of Gospel Story (1909) with the definition of Formgeschichte in the words of its originator, Martin Dibelius, who wrote in the preface to the English edition of his book, From Tradition to Gospel (1934): "The method of Formgeschichte has a twofold objective. In the first place, by reconstruction and analysis it seeks to explain the origin of the tradition about Jesus, and thus to penetrate into a period previous to that in which our Gospels and their written sources were recorded"; and further "it seeks to make clear the intention and real interest of the earliest tradition"; with what purpose the first churches recounted stories about Jesus, and collected and wrote down his sayings. Bacon, ten years earlier, had written quite to the same effect: "The key to all genuinely scientific appreciation of biblical narrative is the recognition of motive. The motive of biblical writers is never strictly historical, but always 'tiological. " "The evangelic tradition consists of anecdotes, told and retold for the purpose of explaining or defending beliefs and practices of the contemporary Church. " Such is the higher criticism which Bacon was always using, with the ultimate goal of a closer approach to the historical Jesus. Three main lines of research were involved: first, studies in Mark, from The Beginnings of Gospel Story (1909) to The Gospel of Mark: Its Composition and Date (1925); next, the "second source" used by Matthew and Luke on which Bacon's principal book was one of his latest, Studies in Matthew (1930), from the preface of which we learn that he planned a book of similar studies in Luke and one on the Source (which he designated as S); third, the Fourth Gospel, on which he published The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate (1910, 1918), and left the manuscript of a volume, The Gospel of the Hellenists, which was edited and published a year after his death by his successor at Yale, Carl H. Kraeling. These books, including the unwritten ones on Luke and on S, he regarded as the foundation on which he wished his life of Christ to rest. Fortunately this unwritten life can be known in its general character by his volumes on the Gospels, and especially by his Shaffer Lectures, Jesus the Son of God, given at Yale in February 1930, and published in the same year. Of this book he wrote, in his Studies in Matthew (p. 518): "Three chapters, headed respectively 'What the Eye Saw, ' 'What the Ear Heard, ' and 'What Entered Into the Heart of Man' aim to bring out a critical estimate of the three chief strands of gospel tradition, Markan, Mattheo-Lukan, and Johannine. Should opportunity not be given for the contemplated Life of Christ this preliminary sketch will serve to indicate the lines along which it might be expected to develop. " The originality and significance of Bacon's work lies in his free and suggestive application of the higher criticism to the origin and nature of the four Gospels. He wrote chiefly for scholars, and must always be reckoned with by students in this field. He himself valued most highly his work on the Johannine Gospel, as his autobiographical essay indicates. He did, however, write two popular studies, An Introduction to the New Testament (1900), which he said was the first American work of its kind, and The Making of the New Testament (1912). He died of coronary thrombosis and was buried in New Haven.

Achievements

• He became known as an able contributor to this method of Biblical study through various articles and two books, The Genesis of Genesis (1892), and The Triple Tradition of the Exodus (1894).

Works

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  • The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate: A Series of Essays on Problems Concerning Cerning the Origin and Value of the Anonymous Writings to the Apostle John (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate: A ...)

  • The Genesis of Genesis; A Study of the Documentary Sources of the First Book of Moses in Accordance with the Results of Critical Science Illustrating

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • Is Mark A Roman Gospel?

    (Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating bac...)

  • Jesus And Paul - Lectures Given At Manchester College, Oxford, For The Winter Term, 1920

    (Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating bac...)

  • Christianity Old and New: Lectures Given at Berkeley, Cal; On the E. T. Earl Foundation (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Christianity Old and New: Lectures Given at ...)

  • The Mysticism Of Jesus And The Mystical Experience Of St. Paul

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • The gospel of the Hellenists
  • The Making of the New Testament
  • The chronological scheme of Acts.
  • After six days;: a new clue for Gospel critics

Religion

He turned to New Testament studies with a thorough-going belief in the method of the "higher criticism, " and with the hope which he then expressed that the same method could be used for a more complete solution of the most important problems which ancient literature presents to the historical student, those of the four Gospels.

Connections

He was married May 27, 1884, to Eliza Buckingham Aiken of Norwich, Connecticut, by whom he had two children, Dorothy Buckingham and Benjamin Selden.

Father:

Leonard Bacon

Mother:

Susan (Bacon) Bacon

Wife:

Eliza Buckingham

Daughter:

Eliza Buckingham

Son:

Benjamin Selden

References

• Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters