George Henry Schodde

Background

He was born on April 15, 1854 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of George F. and Mary Louise Schodde.

Education

George Henry was graduated in 1872 from the college and in 1874 from the theological department of Capital University, Columbus, Ohio. He pursued his studies further in the universities of Tubingen and Leipzig, receiving in 1877 the degree of "Doctor of philosophy" from the latter.

Career

After returning from Europe Schodde was pastor for one year in Canal Winchester, and for two years in Martins Ferry, both in Ohio. In 1880 he joined the faculty of Capital University as professor of Greek and in 1894 he taught, in addition, New Testament exegesis in the theological seminary of the same institution. His strength as a theologian lay in Biblical text criticism, a field in which he was unusually well informed, though not creative.

His booklet, The Protestant Church in Germany (1901), is written in a kindly spirit; one other theological book, Outlines of Biblical Hermeneutics, was published shortly after his death. He translated together with Epiphanius Wilson, A Commentary on the New Testament (4 vols. , 1906).

He was news-editor of the Lutheran Standard since 1889; and editor of the Theological Magazine since 1897. He also contributed articles to the Independent, Sunday School Times, the Nation, Bible Student and Teacher and the Biblical Review.

At the time of his death in 1917 no other name on the clerical roll of the Joint Synod of Ohio was better known among the clergy of other Protestant denominations in the United States than that of Schodde.

Achievements

• George Henry Schodde was the best known clergyman of Protestant denominations in the United States. He was a scholar of coptic language and Old Testament pseudepigrapha, was extremely influenced in Biblical text criticism. Schodde wrote numerous articles and book reviews for church papers and theological magazines, the most famous were The Protestant Church in Germany (1901), Outlines of Biblical Hermeneutics.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Book Of Jubilees, Translated From The Ethiopic FACSIMILE

    (High Quality FACSIMILE REPRODUCTION: Schodde, George Henr...)

  • Problems of Old Testament Discussion ..

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Book of Enoch

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

Religion

Schodde placed the Union Church of Germany, a church that is at least nine-tenths Lutheran, outside the pale of Lutheranism, and assigned the same fate to the Hohenzollerns. He could tolerate a state church, but his ideal was a free church of the Missouri Synod type. Schodde's attitude was due to a confusion of archaic with historic Lutheranism and to the failure to utilize the research of the Luther-renaissance, well under way in Sweden and Germany at his death. It also caused him to judge the non-Lutheran branches of Protestantism unfairly. They constituted for him, following German theological classification, the Reformed. He called the Lutheran Church a "Bible Church, " a distinction which he withheld from the "Reformed, " claiming that in the latter it is held that the Spirit in Schodde was, no doubt, Christocentric in his religion.

Views

Schodde abided by the conservative findings of others and, as much as possible, by traditional interpretation without closing the door entirely upon the historical treatment of the text. He regarded the positions of Wellhausen as wholly indefensible; he admired the brilliancy of Harnack, but sought shelter under the rafters of Theodor Zahn. In evaluating creeds, doctrines, and denominations his criterion was orthodox. To him Chemnitz, Hollaz, and Johann Gerhard were "giants of theological thought and research".

His theology was Bibliocentric. He was a stranger to the real problems of the new century's theology which were precipitated upon the orthodox by German and Swedish scholars. He admired German theological scholarship, which he found to be "to a great extent evangelical and positive" but not distinctively Lutheran.

Connections

Schodde was married, on December 22, 1881, to Mary Dorsch, who with one daughter, survived him.

Father:

George F. Schodde

Mother:

Mary Louise Schodde

Spouse:

Mary Dorsch

References

• The new Schaff-Herzog encyclopedia of religious knowledge , embracing Biblical, historical, doctrinal, and practical theology and Biblical, theological, and ecclesiastical biography...(VOLUME 10)
• Who's Who in America, 1916 - 1917, Vol. IX 9: A Biographical Dictionary Of Notable Living Men And Women In The United States