Bernhard Word Anderson (September 25, 1916 – December 26, 2007) was an American

United Methodist The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelical ...

pastor A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy an ...

and

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. T ...

scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researc ...

Information

Born in Dover, Missouri, Anderson earned degrees from the College of the Pacific and Pacific School of Religion. In 1939, he was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform ...

to the ministry of the (then) Methodist Church. He served

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

churches in California, and later

Congregational Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs it ...

churches in both Connecticut and New York. In 1945 he received the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...

, where he specialized in Old Testament studies. He holds honorary degrees from the Pacific School of Religion, the University of the Pacific, and

Colgate University Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York. The college was founded in 1819 as the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York and operated under that name until 1823, when it was renamed Hamilton Theolog ...

. As a professor, he served Colgate University in New York, the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

, the Colgate Rochester Divinity School,

Drew University Drew University is a private university in Madison, New Jersey. Drew has been nicknamed the "University in the Forest" because of its wooded campus. As of fall 2020, more than 2,200 students were pursuing degrees at the university's three scho ...

, (where he served as Dean of the Theological School for nine years), and finally as a Professor of Old Testament Theology at

Princeton Theological Seminary Princeton Theological Seminary (PTSem), officially The Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, is a private school of theology in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1812 under the auspices of Archibald Alexander, the General Assembly o ...

, where he was Professor of Old Testament Theology Emeritus. In retirement, he continued to teach into the late 1980s-early 1990s at

Boston University School of Theology Boston University School of Theology (BUSTH) is the oldest theological seminary of American Methodism and the founding school of Boston University, the largest private research university in New England. It is one of thirteen theological school ...

. He died on December 26, 2007, in

Santa Cruz, California Santa Cruz ( Spanish for "Holy Cross") is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, in Northern California. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 62,956. Situated on the northern edge of Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz is a pop ...

Selected works

* ''Contours of Old Testament Theology'' () * ''Understanding the Old Testament'' () * ''The Unfolding Drama of the Bible'' () * ''Creation Versus Chaos: The Reinterpretation of Mythical Symbolism in the Bible'' () * ''From Creation to New Creation'' () * ''Creation in the Old Testament'' (editor) () * ''The Eighth Century Prophets: Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah'' () * ''Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak for Us Today'' () (Westminster Press, 1970) * ''The Living World of the Old Testament'' (Prentice-Hall, 1957) * ''The Place of the Book of Esther in the Christian Bible'' * ''Faith Enacted as History: Essays in Biblical Theology'' author-Will Herberg (editor-B W Anderson) (Westminster Press, 1976)

References

Sources

Obituary of Bernhard W. Anderson
1916 births 2007 deaths American biblical scholars 20th-century Methodist ministers Yale Divinity School alumni Colgate University faculty Drew University faculty University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty Princeton Theological Seminary faculty Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School alumni American United Methodist clergy 20th-century American clergy {{Christian-theologian-stub