John James Blunt (1794 – 18 June 1855) was an English Anglican priest. His writings included studies of the early Church.

Life

Blunt was born at

Newcastle-under-Lyme Newcastle-under-Lyme ( RP: , ) is a market town and the administrative centre of the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, England. The 2011 census population of the town was 75,082, whilst the wider borough had a population of 1 ...

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

. He was educated at

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corpo ...

, where he took his degree as fifteenth wrangler in 1816 and obtained a fellowship. He was appointed a Worts travelling bachelor 1818, and spent some time in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

and

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, afterwards publishing an account of his journey. He proceeded MA in 1819, BD 1826, and was

Hulsean Lecturer The Hulsean Lectures were established from an endowment made by John Hulse to the University of Cambridge in 1790. At present, they consist of a series of four to eight lectures given by a university graduate on some branch of Christian theology. ...

in 1831-1832 while holding a curacy in

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...

. In 1834, he became rector of Great Oakley in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, and in 1839 was appointed

Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity The Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity is the oldest professorship at the University of Cambridge. It was founded initially as a readership by Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII, in 1502. Since its re-endowment at the end of ...

at Cambridge. In 1854 he declined the

see of Salisbury The Diocese of Salisbury is a Church of England list of dioceses in the Church of England, diocese in the south of England, within the ecclesiastical Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers most of Dorset (excepting the deaneries of Bournemo ...

. In his chief book, ''Undesigned Coincidences in the Writings both of the Old and New Testaments'' (1833; fuller edition, 1847), he coined the term undesigned coincidences. Some of his writings, among them the ''History of the Christian Church during the First Three Centuries'' and the lectures ''On the Right Use of the Early Fathers'', were published posthumously. A short memoir of him appeared in 1856 from the hand of William Selwyn, his successor in the divinity professorship.

Works

*
The Veracity of the Gospels & Acts of the Apostles, Argued from the Undesigned Coincidences to Be Found in Them, When Compared
' (1828) *
The Veracity of the Five Books of Moses, Argued from the Undesigned Coincidences to be Found in Them, when Compared in Their Several Parts
' (1830) *''Undesigned Coincidences in the Writings both of the Old and New Testaments'' (1833; fuller edition, 1847) *
History of the Christian Church during the First Three Centuries
' (1861) *
On the Right Use of the Early Fathers
' (1869)

References

;Attribution * *

External links

Text of ''Undesigned Coincidences''
1794 births 1855 deaths 19th-century English theologians 19th-century English Anglican priests Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge People from Newcastle-under-Lyme Academics of the University of Cambridge English male non-fiction writers 19th-century English male writers Lady Margaret's Professors of Divinity {{Anglican-stub