E. W. Bullinger

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E. W. Bullinger (1837-1913)

Ethelbert William Bullinger (December 15, 1837 - June 6, 1913) was an ordained Anglican clergyman, Biblical scholar, and dispensationalist theologian.

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[edit] Life and work

Born in Canterbury, Kent, England, his family traced its lineage back to the noted Swiss reformer Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1557). He was educated at King's College, London, and gained recognition in the field of Biblical languages. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1862. In the great Anglican debate of the Victorian era, he was a Low Churchman rather than High Church sacerdotalist.

E.W. Bullinger was noted broadly for three works: A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament (1877) ISBN 0-8254-2096-2; for his ground-breaking and exhaustive work on Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (1898) ISBN 0-8010-0559-0; and as the primary editor of The Companion Bible (published in 6 parts, beginning in 1909 ; the entire annotated Bible was published posthumously in 1922) ISBN 0-8254-2177-2. These works and many others remain in print (2006).

In 1881, four years after the publication of the Lexicon and Concordance, Archibald Campbell Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury conferred upon Bullinger a Doctor of Divinity degree, citing Bullinger's "eminent service in the Church in the department of Biblical criticism."

Bullinger's friends included well-known Zionist Dr. Theodore Herzl.

[edit] Trinitarian Bible Society

In 1867, at age 29, Bullinger accepted the office of clerical secretary of the Trinitarian Bible Society (TBS), an office which he exercised, with rare lapses due to illness in his later years, until his death. Accomplishments of TBS during his secretariat include:

Bullinger was also a practiced musician. As part of his support for the Breton Mission, he collected and harmonized several previously untranscribed Breton hymns on his visits to Tremel, Brittany.

Bullinger's TBS workload in his later years was reduced by the assistance of Henry Charles Bowker and Charles Welch. Their assistance enabled him to focus on The Companion Bible in his final years. Bullinger and Ginsburg parted ways, and another edition of Tanakh was published by the British and Foreign Bible Society.

[edit] Theology

Bullinger's theology was a form of dispensationalism on which he wrote numerous articles which appeared in his monthly journal Things to Come. Bullinger described dispensations as divine "administrations" or "arrangements" wherein God deals at distinct time periods and with distinct groups of people "on distinct principles, and the doctrine relating to each must be kept distinct." He emphasizes that "Nothing but confusion can arise from reading into one dispensation that which relates to another." {Companion Bible, [1]}

He listed seven "dispensations" in the Bible:

1. The Edenic State (Innocence) - which lasted until the expulsion from Eden.

2. Mankind as a whole (Patriarchal) - from the expulsion from Eden until the giving of the Law to Israel, although in one place Bullinger says that this dispensation ended with the Flood and the confusion of Babel.

3. Israel (under the Law) - ended with the rejection by Israel of the grace of God at the end of Acts.

4. The Church of God (The Secret Dispensation of Grace) - gradual transition from Law to Grace during the Acts period, culminating in the rejection of Israel in Acts 28:24-28. {Companion Bible, Appendix 193}

5. Israel (Judicial) - begins at the "Gathering Together".

6. Mankind as a whole (Millenial or Theocratic) - ends with the destruction of Satan.

7. The Eternal State (Glory) - no end.

His name has become virtually synonymous with Ultra-dispensationalism. Although Bullinger and members of the Plymouth Brethren such as John Nelson Darby were all influenced by Edward Irving[citation needed], and thus shared similar dispensational doctrines, members of the Brethren became some of his most persistent critics.

Bullinger also taught a form of annihilationism.

[edit] See also

  • Harry A. Ironside — a dispensationalist who was a critic of ultra-dispensationalism.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Bullinger, E. W. (1922). Companion Bible, Appendix 181. 

[edit] References

  • Carey, Juanita S. (1988). E.W. Bullinger: A Biography. Kregel Publications. ISBN 0-8254-2372-4. 

[edit] External links

For more information on Bullinger's dispensationalism go here : E.W. Bullinger's "How to Enjoy the Bible - Rightly Dividing the Word as to its Times and Dispensations" and here : E.W. Bullinger's "How to Enjoy the Bible".

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