Ethelbert William Bullinger (15 December 1837 – 6 June 1913) was an
Anglican clergyman, biblical scholar, and
ultradispensationalist theologian.
Early life
He was born in
Canterbury
Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of ...
,
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, the youngest of five children of William and Mary (Bent) Bullinger. His family traced their ancestry back to
Heinrich Bullinger
Heinrich Bullinger (18 July 1504 – 17 September 1575) was a Swiss Reformer and theologian, the successor of Huldrych Zwingli as head of the Church of Zürich and a pastor at the Grossmünster. One of the most important leaders of the Swiss R ...
, the Swiss Reformer.
His formal theological training was at
King's College London from 1860 to 1861, and he earned an associate degree. After graduation, on 15 October 1861, he married Emma Dobson, 13 years his senior.
['' E. W. Bullinger: A Biography'', Carey, Juanita, 2000, p. 39] He later received a Doctor of Divinity in 1881 not from a university but from
Archibald Campbell Tait
Archibald Campbell Tait (21 December 18113 December 1882) was an Archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England and theologian. He was the first Scottish Archbishop of Canterbury and thus, head of the Church of England.
Life
Tait was bo ...
,
Archbishop of Canterbury, who cited Bullinger's "eminent service in the Church in the department of
Biblical criticism".
Career
Bullinger's career in the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...
spanned from 1861 to 1888. He began as associate
curate in the
parish
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...
of St. Mary Magdalene,
Bermondsey
Bermondsey () is a district in southeast London, part of the London Borough of Southwark, England, southeast of Charing Cross. To the west of Bermondsey lies Southwark, to the east Rotherhithe and Deptford, to the south Walworth and Peckham ...
, in 1861,
and was ordained as a priest in the Church of England in 1862. He served as parish curate in
Tittleshall
Tittleshall is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk.Ordnance Survey (1999). ''OS Explorer Map 238 - East Dereham & Aylsham''. .
Location
The village and parish of Tittleshall has an area of 1376 hectares or . The parish is ...
(1863–1866),
Notting Hill
Notting Hill is a district of West London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Notting Hill is known for being a cosmopolitan and multicultural neighbourhood, hosting the annual Notting Hill Carnival and Portobello Road Ma ...
(1866–1869),
Leytonstone
Leytonstone () is an area in east London, England, north-east of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Waltham Forest, a local authority district of Greater London. It adjoins Wanstead to the north-east, Forest Gate to the south-east, ...
, (1869–1870) and
Walthamstow until he became
vicar
A vicar (; Latin: '' vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pre ...
of the new parish of St. Stephen's in 1874. He resigned his vicarage in 1888.
Trinitarian Bible Society
In the spring of 1867, at the age of 29, Bullinger became clerical secretary of the
Trinitarian Bible Society
The Trinitarian Bible Society was founded in 1831 "to promote the Glory of God and the salvation of men by circulating, both at home and abroad, in dependence on the Divine blessing, the Holy Scriptures, which are given by inspiration of God and ...
, which he held, with rare lapses for illness in his later years, until his death, in 1913.
The society's accomplishments of TBS during his secretariat include the following:
*The completion and publication of a Hebrew version of the New Testament under a TBS contract with
Christian David Ginsburg
Christian David Ginsburg (, 25 December 1831 – 7 March 1914) was a Polish-born British Bible scholar and a student of the Masoretic tradition in Judaism.
He was born to a Jewish family in Warsaw but converted to Christianity at the age of 15.
...
after the demise of
Isaac Salkinson.
*The publication of Ginsburg's first edition of the
Tanakh
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
'' Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period ...
Evangelical Mission Society under
Pasteur LeCoat
Louis Pasteur (, ; 27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization, the latter of which was named afte ...
and translation of the Bible into
Breton
Breton most often refers to:
*anything associated with Brittany, and generally
** Breton people
** Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany
** Breton (horse), a breed
**Ga ...
.
*The first-ever Protestant
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
Reference Bible.
*Distribution of
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
Bibles in Spain after the 1868
Spanish Revolution.
Bullinger and Ginsburg parted ways, and another edition of Tanakh was published by the
British and Foreign Bible Society.
Author
Bullinger was editor of a monthly journal ''Things to Come'', subtitled ''A Journal of Biblical Literature, with Special Reference to Prophetic Truth. The Official Organ of Prophetic Conferences'' for over 20 years (1894–1915), and he contributed many articles.
In the great Anglican debate of the
Victorian era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...
, he belonged to the
Low Church, rather than the
High Church
The term ''high church'' refers to beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, liturgy, and theology that emphasize formality and resistance to modernisation. Although used in connection with various Christian traditions, the term originate ...
.
He wrote four major works:
*''A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament'' (1877)
*''Number in Scripture'' (1894)
*''Figures of Speech Used in the Bible'' (1898)
*Primary editor of ''The Companion Bible'' (published in 6 parts, 1909–1922) . It was completed after his death by his associates.
As of 2020, those works and many others remain in print, or at least are reproduced on the Internet.
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
Trémel
Trémel (; br, Tremael) is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department of the region of Brittany in northwestern France.
Population
Inhabitants of Trémel are called ''trémélois'' in French.
See also
*Communes of the Côtes-d'Armor depar ...
,
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period ...
. He also published “Fifty original hymn-tunes” in 1874 which reached a third edition in 1897. The first,
BULLINGER, is the only still in use today, often sung to the words “I am trusting Thee, Lord Jesus”.
Friends
Bullinger's friends included well-known
Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
Dr.
Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl; hu, Herzl Tivadar; Hebrew name given at his brit milah: Binyamin Ze'ev (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish lawyer, journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer who was the father of modern po ...
.
It was a personal friendship, but accorded with Bullinger's belief in a Biblical distinction between the Church and the Jewish people. Another close personal and theological friend was the famous Sir Robert Anderson.
Bullingerism
Bullinger's views were often unique and sometimes controversial. He is so closely tied to what is now called ultradispensationalism that it is sometimes referred to as Bullingerism. Noted dispensationalist
Harry A. Ironside
Henry Allan "Harry" Ironside (October 14, 1876 – January 15, 1951) was a Canadian-American Bible teacher, preacher, theologian, pastor, and author who pastored Moody Church in Chicago from 1929 to 1948.
Biography
Ironside was born in Toronto, O ...
(1876–1951) declared Bullingerism an "absolutely Satanic perversion of the truth."
Bullingerism differed from mainstream
dispensationalism
Dispensationalism is a system that was formalized in its entirety by John Nelson Darby. Dispensationalism maintains that history is divided into multiple ages or "dispensations" in which God acts with humanity in different ways. Dispensationali ...
on the beginning of the church. Mainstream
dispensationalism
Dispensationalism is a system that was formalized in its entirety by John Nelson Darby. Dispensationalism maintains that history is divided into multiple ages or "dispensations" in which God acts with humanity in different ways. Dispensationali ...
holds that the Church began at
Pentecost, as described early in the
Acts of the Apostles. In stark contrast, Bullinger held that ''the Church'', which the Apostle Paul revealed as the ''Body of Christ'', began after the end of Acts, and was not revealed until the Prison Epistles of the
Apostle Paul.
Bullinger described dispensations as divine "administrations" or "arrangements" under which 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, "Nothing but confusion can arise from reading into one dispensation that which relates to another." He lists seven dispensations:
Other views
Other than ultradispensationalism, Bullinger had many unique views. For example, Bullinger argued that the death of Jesus occurred on a Wednesday, not a Friday, after Pilate had condemned him at the previous midnight, and that Jesus was crucified on a single upright stake without crossbar with four, not just two, criminals and that this last view was supported by a
group of five crosses of different origins (all with crossbar) in Brittany (put together in the 18th century).
Bullinger argued for
mortality of the soul
Christian mortalism is the Christian belief that the human soul is not naturally immortal and may include the belief that the soul is “sleeping” after death until the Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment, a time known as the int ...
, the cessation of the soul between death and resurrection. He did not express any views concerning the final state of the lost, but many of his followers hold to
annihilationism
In Christianity, annihilationism (also known as extinctionism or destructionism) is the belief that after the Last Judgment, all unsaved human beings, all fallen angels (all of the damned) and Satan himself will be totally destroyed so as to not ...
.
Bullinger was a supporter of the theory of the Gospel in the Stars, which states the constellations to be pre-Christian expressions of Christian doctrine. In his book ''Number in Scripture'' he expounded his belief in the
gematria
Gematria (; he, גמטריא or gimatria , plural or , ''gimatriot'') is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word or phrase according to an alphanumerical cipher. A single word can yield several values depending on the cipher ...
or
numerology values of words in Scripture (names and terms), a concept of which the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' says: "Numerology sheds light on the innermost workings of the human mind but very little on the rest of the universe." He strongly opposed the
theory of evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variatio ...
and held that Adam was created in 4004 BC. He was a member of the
Universal Zetetic Society, a group dedicated to believing and promoting the idea that the earth is flat, and on 7 March 1905, he chaired a meeting in
Exeter Hall
Exeter Hall was a large public meeting place on the north side of the Strand in central London, opposite where the Savoy Hotel now stands. From 1831 until 1907 Exeter Hall was the venue for many great gatherings by promoters of human bettermen ...
,
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, in which the flat earth theory was expounded.
Works
List of worksNumber in ScriptureCommentary on Revelation or, The ApocalypseWord Studies on the Holy SpiritThe Witness of the StarsHow to Enjoy the BibleThe Book of Job, Including "The Oldest Lesson in the World"The Church Epistles: Romans to ThessaloniansFigures of Speech Used in the BibleGreat Cloud of WitnessesA Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New TestamentThe Companion BibleThe Foundations of Dispensational TruthThe Chief Musician Or, Studies in the Psalms, and Their TitlesTen Sermons on the Second Advent*''Fifty Original Hymn-Tunes.''London: Eyre & Spottiswode (1874)
Notes
References
*
External links
E.W. Bullinger Biography and Books*https://archive.org/details/witnessofthestar00bulluoft
E.W. Bullinger Books Website(html & pdf)
(All 198 appendices to the Bible)
Google has a limited preview of The Companion BibleThe Companion Bible (Condensed) on line(not PDF images. Fully searchable)
Number in ScriptureE.W. Bullinger: Number in Scripture Its Supernatural Design and Spiritual Significance(4th Edition, Revised)
*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080509061616/http://www.peterwade.com/articles/bullingr/cloud00.shtml E.W. Bullinger: Great Cloud of Witnessesbr>
E.W. Bullinger: The Two Natures in the Child of God*E.W. Bullinger
Critical Lexicon Concordance EngGreekNT. 5thed, (1908).
*For more information on Bullinger's dispensationalism go here
and here :
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20061108064145/http://philologos.org/%5F%5Feb%2Dhtetb/ E.W. Bullinger's "How to Enjoy the Bible"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bullinger, E. W.
1837 births
1913 deaths
19th-century Anglican theologians
19th-century English Anglican priests
20th-century Anglican theologians
20th-century English Anglican priests
Alumni of King's College London
Associates of King's College
English Anglican theologians
Evangelical Anglican biblical scholars
Evangelical Anglican clergy
Evangelical Anglican theologians
Flat Earth proponents
People from Canterbury