Johann August Ernesti

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Not to be confused with Johann Heinrich Ernesti.
Johann August Ernesti

Johann August Ernesti (4 August 1707 – 11 September 1781) was a

Rationalist theologian and philologist. Ernesti was the first who formally separated the hermeneutics of the Old Testament from those of the New.[1]

Biography

Ernesti was born in

Rationalist revolution in theology. He died in Leipzig
, after a short illness, in his seventy-sixth year.

Work

Apart from the quality of his own writing, Ernesti is notable for his influence on

Lutheran theology, and in conjunction with Gesner he instituted a new school in ancient literature. He detected grammatical niceties in Latin
, in regard to the consecution of tenses which had escaped preceding critics.

As an editor of the

higher criticism
was not even attempted by Ernesti. But to him and to Gesner is due the credit of having formed, by discipline and by example, philologists greater than themselves, and of having kindled the national enthusiasm for ancient learning.

It is chiefly in

biblical exegesis. He was, in fact, the founder of the grammatico-historical school
. He admits in the sacred writings as in the classics only one acceptation, and that the grammatical, convertible into and the same with the logical and historical. Consequently, he censures the opinion of those who in the illustration of the Scriptures refer everything to the illumination of the Holy Spirit, as well as that of others who, disregarding all knowledge of the languages, would explain words by things. The "analogy of faith," as a rule of interpretation, he greatly limits, and teaches that it can never afford of itself the explanation, of words, but only determine the choice among their possible meanings. At the same time he seems unconscious of any inconsistency between the doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible as usually received and his principles of hermeneutics.

Conflict with J. S. Bach

Beginning in 1736, Ernesti became involved in a protracted dispute with

J. S. Bach, who was cantor at the Thomas school at the time. The dispute concerned the appointment of a student prefect to lead musical performances whom Bach objected to, on grounds Ernesti considered spurious. This acrimonious conflict resulted in multiple letters to city officials and ultimately the king, despite the fact that Ernesti had served as godfather to Bach's children.[2]

Legacy

Ernesti's most notable follower was the German theologian Samuel Friedrich Nathanael Morus [de].[3]

His work influenced Johann Gottfried Herder[4] and Friedrich Schleiermacher.[5]

Works

Works on classical literature:

Works on sacred literature:

  • Antimuratorius sive confutatio disputationis Muratorianae de rebus liturgicis (1755–1758)
  • Neue theologische Bibliothek, vols. i. to x. (1760–1769)
  • Institutio interpretis Nov. Test. (3rd ed., 1775)
  • Neueste theologische Bibliothek, vols. i. to x. (1771–1775).

Besides these, he published more than a hundred smaller works, many of which have been collected in the three following publications: Opuscula oratoria (1762); Opuscula philologica et critica (1764); Opuscula theologica (1773).

Notes

  1. ^ Samuel Davidson, Sacred Hermeneutics Developed and Applied: Including a History of Biblical Interpretation from the Earliest of the Fathers to the Reformation, Thomas Clark, 1843, p. 692.
  2. OCLC 42682699
    . pp. 349-350.
  3. ^ Richard E. Palmer, Hermeneutics, Northwestern University Press, 1969, p. 82.
  4. ^ Fernando Vidal, The Sciences of the Soul: The Early Modern Origins of Psychology, University of Chicago Press, 2011, p. 193 n. 31.
  5. ^ Anthony C. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical Reading, Harper Collins, 1997, p. 214.

References

External links

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