James Bannerman (theologian)

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James Bannerman
Theologian
Years activemid 19th-century
Notable workThe Church of Christ, Inspiration
Theological work
Tradition or movementFree Church of Scotland (1843–1900)
Main interestsEcclesiology, Biblical inspiration

James Bannerman (9 April 1807 – 27 March 1868) was a Scottish theologian.

Presbyterian ecclesiology
, The Church of Christ.

Life

James Bannerman from Disruption Worthies
New College, Edinburgh, where Bannerman served as a professor

Bannerman was the son of James Patrick Bannerman, minister of Cargill, Perthshire. He was born at the manse of Cargill on 9 April 1807, and after a distinguished career at the University of Edinburgh, especially in the classes of Sir John Leslie and Professor Wilson, became minister of Ormiston, in Midlothian, in 1833, left the Established Church for the Free Church in 1843, and in 1849 was appointed professor of apologetics and pastoral theology in the New College, Edinburgh, which office he held till his death, 27 March 1868, at his home, 7 Clarendon Crescent, near Dean Bridge.[2]

In 1850 he received the degree of D.D. from

Princeton College, New Jersey
. He took a leading part in various public movements, especially in that which led in 1843 to the separation of the free church from the state, and subsequently in the negotiations for union between the nonconformist presbyterian churches of England and Scotland.

Works

His chief publications were:

  • Letter to the Marquis of Tweeddale on the Church Question, 1840[3]
  • The Prevalent Forms of Unbelief, 1849[4]
  • Systematic Theology, 1851[5]
  • Apologetical Theology, 1851[6]
  • Inspiration: the Infallible Truth and Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures, 1865[7]
  • The Church of Christ, also known as The Church: a Treatise on the Nature, Powers, Ordinances, Discipline, and Government of the Christian Church, 2 vols. 8vo; published after his death in 1868, and edited by his son[8][9][10]
  • A volume of sermons (also posthumous) published in 1869[11][12]

Rosemary Mitchell asserts: "Bannerman published several theological works: one of the most significant, Inspiration: the Infallible Truth and Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures (1865), was criticized by the theologian A. B. Davidson (1831–1902) for calling forth 'no opposition and no assent' (Drummond and Bulloch, 263). Nevertheless, it sounded a cautious retreat from the fundamentalism of Free Church orthodoxy, as Bannerman dissociated himself from the theory of verbal inspiration and accepted translations (and even paraphrases) as equally valid with the Greek and Hebrew scriptural originals."[13]

Family

Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh

In 1839 he married David (sic) Anne Douglas (1821–1879), a daughter of David Douglas, Lord Reston, one of the Senators of the College of Justice.

They had three sons and six daughters, including David Douglas Bannerman (b.1842)

Grange Cemetery in Edinburgh
.

He married 2 April 1839, David Anne (died 11 April 1879), daughter of David Douglas, Lord Reston, one of the Senators of the College of Justice, and had issue —

References

  1. ^ Wylie 1881.
  2. ^ Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1868
  3. ^ Bannerman 1840.
  4. ^ Bannerman 1849.
  5. ^ Bannerman 1851, pp. 79-100.
  6. ^ Bannerman 1851, pp. 101-120.
  7. ^ Bannerman 1865.
  8. ^ Bannerman 1868a.
  9. ^ Bannerman 1868b.
  10. ^ "James Bannerman". The Banner of Truth.
  11. ^ Bannerman 1869.
  12. ^ a b Scott 1915.
  13. ^ Mitchell 2004.
  14. ^ Ewing, William Annals of the Free Church of Scotland
  15. ^ "Descendants of James Bannerman". Mit.edu. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  16. ^ "Account Suspended" (PDF). Royalsoced.org.uk. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 September 2015. Retrieved 26 February 2020.

Sources

External links