Andreas Birch (November 6, 1758 – October 25, 1829) was a professor from
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
.
[Fr. Nielsen]
Biografi
i 1. '' Dansk biografisk leksikon'', edited by C.F. Bricka, 2. volume, page 280, Gyldendal
Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag A/S, usually referred to simply as Gyldendal () is a Danish publishing house.
Founded in 1770 by Søren Gyldendal, it is the oldest and largest publishing house in Denmark, offering a wide selection of bo ...
, 1887–1905 Birch was sent in 1781–1783 by the king of Denmark,
Christian VII
Christian VII (29 January 1749 – 13 March 1808) was a monarch of the House of Oldenburg who was King of Denmark–Norway and Duke of Duchy of Schleswig, Schleswig and Duchy of Holstein, Holstein from 1766 until his death in 1808. For his motto ...
, to examine manuscripts in Italy, Germany, and other European countries.
Life
Birch had a difficult experience at the age of 4 when in one month he lost both of his parents. His uncle, brewer A. T. Gardenholtz, took care of him, however, and by the year 1774, he was a student. Five years later he finished his theological studies in Copenhagen and travelled to
Göttingen
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...
to continue his theological and philological studies under the guidance of
Johann David Michaelis
Johann David Michaelis (27 February 1717 – 22 August 1791) was a Prussian biblical scholar and teacher. He was member of a family that was committed to solid discipline in Hebrew and the cognate languages, which distinguished the University ...
' and
Christian Gottlob Heyne
Christian Gottlob Heyne (; 25 September 1729 – 14 July 1812) was a German classical scholar and archaeologist as well as long-time director of the Göttingen State and University Library. He was a member of the Göttingen School of History.
...
. Michaelis, who had big expectations for Birch's scientific abilities, advised him to travel to Italy to study "the hidden and hitherto unused manuscripts of the New Testament."
[ Prime Minister ]Ove Høegh-Guldberg
Ove Høegh-Guldberg (born ''Guldberg''; 1 September 1731 – 7 February 1808) was a Danish statesman, historian, and ''de facto'' prime minister of Denmark during the reign of the mentally unstable King Christian VII.
Biography
Guldber ...
successfully helped Birch in acquiring the funds for this venture, and in 1781 Birch left Göttingen, through Switzerland and southern France to Italy. The journey went through Turin, Genoa, and Livorno to Rome and from there on to Naples. In Rome he found an invaluable aid in Monsignor Stefano Borgia
Stefano Borgia (3 December 1731 – 1804) was an Italian Cardinal, theologian, antiquarian, and historian.
Life
Cardinal Borgia belonged to a well known family of Velletri, where he was born, and was a member of the collateral branch of House ...
, secretary of the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide
Sacra may refer to :
* '' Bibliotheca Sacra'', the theological journal published by Dallas Theological Seminary
* '' Harmonia Sacra'', a Mennonite shape note hymn and tune book
* Isola Sacra, an island in the Lazio region of Italy south of Rome
* ...
, who supposedly gave him "considerable evidence to show his friendship." Before he left Rome, Birch was introduced to Pope Pius VI
Pope Pius VI ( it, Pio VI; born Count Giovanni Angelo Braschi, 25 December 171729 August 1799) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 15 February 1775 to his death in August 1799.
Pius VI condemned the French Revoluti ...
. His way home went through Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
, Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...
, Parma
Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmigiano-Reggiano, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 ...
, Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
, Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
, Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...
, and Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
to Göttingen, and from there to Copenhagen. Everywhere he went, his time was spent collecting books, collating old manuscripts of the New Testament and the apocryphal gospels, and busying himself with the study of these.[
In the years 1781–1783 he travelled throughout Italy and Germany for the purpose of examining manuscripts. In the Vatican Library he examined 40, in the library of Barberini 10, in other Roman libraries 17, in Florence and other parts of Italy 38, and in Vienna 12 manuscripts.
]
New edition of the New Testament
After his return in 1783 the king commanded him to Guldberg's option to attend an edition of the New Testament basic text which was printed at royal expense, it was one of Goldberg's last acts as Prime Minister. This version would be a wonderful edition with a rich critical apparatus, which could show the learned world that Denmark would not be outdone when it was a study of the Christian holy book. The large Royal Library in Copenhagen owned the once considerable variation collections of the New Testament, not only due to general superintendent J. G. C. Adler, who had studied the Syrian Palestinian translation, and then professor in Copenhagen Daniel Gotthilf Moldenhawer
Daniel Gotthilf Moldenhawer (11 December 1753 – 21 November 1823), was a German-Danish philologist, theologian, librarian, bibliophile, palaeographer, diplomat, and Bible translator.
Early life and education
Moldenhawer was born in Kö ...
who had examined the New Testament manuscripts in the Escorial
El Escorial, or the Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial ( es, Monasterio y Sitio de El Escorial en Madrid), or Monasterio del Escorial (), is a historical residence of the King of Spain located in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, up ...
palace and Professor at Kiel C. G. Hensler, who had compared the Copenhagen manuscripts with the usual text. Based on these processors and its own collections completed Birch preparation of the four gospels, which appeared in 1788 as the first part of the planned magnificent edition, in both folio and quarto. As a kind of introduction to this work he had already three years past where a "critical description of Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament."[Fr. Nielsen]
Biografi
i 1. '' Dansk biografisk leksikon'', edited by C.F. Bricka, 2. volume, page 281, Gyldendal
Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag A/S, usually referred to simply as Gyldendal () is a Danish publishing house.
Founded in 1770 by Søren Gyldendal, it is the oldest and largest publishing house in Denmark, offering a wide selection of bo ...
, 1887–1905
Birch's large version of the four Gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...
s, for which he used John Mill's edition of the New Testament as basis, caused no little stir in the scholarly world, and many thought that the young scholars may be obvious to a university position in his homeland. That same year, as Birch issued the first volume of his magnificent edition, an extraordinary professorship in theology was created, Birch decided to apply but the position eventually went to Friedrich Christian Carl Hinrich Münter instead. Since both competitors' sample lectures were printed, the critical author Niels Ditlev Riegels
Niels Ditlev Riegels (also Riegelsen) (1755 – 24 August 1802) was a Danish historian, journalist and pamphleteer.
Niels Ditlev Riegels was known for his extensive authorship that was extremely critical of the Danish society and institutions. He ...
, as usual, was discontented with the choice, and in one of his writings ("Tanker ved Gjennemlæsningen af Prøveforelæsningerne for det overordentlige theologiske Professorat", "Thoughts inspired by the reading of the test lectures for the extraordinary professorship at the Theological Faculty", 1789) he made the insinuation that Münter was appointed to the position beforehand and that the whole competition was just staged to defend that "the University was again being enriched with a German". An unbiased comparison of the two competitors' lectures shows that the lecture of Münter really was not up to his usual standard, but his later authorship soon proved him to be the right choice for the position.[Fr. Nielsen]
Biografi
of Münter i 1. '' Dansk biografisk leksikon'', edited by C.F. Bricka, 12. volume, page 29, Gyldendal
Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag A/S, usually referred to simply as Gyldendal () is a Danish publishing house.
Founded in 1770 by Søren Gyldendal, it is the oldest and largest publishing house in Denmark, offering a wide selection of bo ...
, 1887–1905
In 1798 Birch published a collection of various readings to the Acts
The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message ...
and Epistles (among them from Codex Vaticanus
The Codex Vaticanus ( The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), designated by siglum B or 03 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 1 ( von Soden), is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old ...
). Subsequently, in 1800 he published a collection of various readings to the Apocalypse, and in 1801 a collection of various readings to the four Gospels.
Works
*
*
*
*
*
See also
* Daniel Gotthilf Moldenhawer
Daniel Gotthilf Moldenhawer (11 December 1753 – 21 November 1823), was a German-Danish philologist, theologian, librarian, bibliophile, palaeographer, diplomat, and Bible translator.
Early life and education
Moldenhawer was born in Kö ...
References
Further reading
* Fr. Nielsen
Biografi
i 1. '' Dansk biografisk leksikon'', edited by C.F. Bricka, 2. volume, pages 280–282, Gyldendal
Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag A/S, usually referred to simply as Gyldendal () is a Danish publishing house.
Founded in 1770 by Søren Gyldendal, it is the oldest and largest publishing house in Denmark, offering a wide selection of bo ...
, 1887–1905
{{DEFAULTSORT:Birch, Andreas
18th-century Danish clergy
19th-century Danish clergy
Academic staff of the University of Copenhagen
University of Copenhagen alumni
People from Copenhagen
1758 births
1829 deaths
New Testament scholars