Joseph Lightfoot

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The Right Reverend
Joseph Lightfoot
Bishop of Durham
Joseph-barber-lightfoot.gif
Diocese Durham
Elected 15 March 1879
In office 10 April 1879 (conf.)–1889 (died)
Predecessor Charles Baring
Successor Brooke Foss Westcott
Other posts Hulsean Professor of Divinity (1861–1875)
Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity (1875–1879)
Deputy Clerk of the Closet (1875–?)
Personal details
Born(1828-04-13)13 April 1828
Liverpool, Lancashire, United Kingdom
Died 21 December 1889(1889-12-21) (aged 61)
Bournemouth, Hampshire, UK
Buried Auckland Castle chapel
Nationality British
Denomination Anglican
Residence Auckland Castle (as Bishop of Durham)
Parents John Lightfoot & Ann Lightfoot (née Barber)
Spouse never married
Profession academic; biblical scholar; bible translator; theologian; tutor
Education King Edward's School, Birmingham
Alma mater Trinity College, Cambridge
Ordination history of
Joseph Lightfoot
History
Diaconal ordination
Ordained by James Prince Lee, Bishop of Manchester
Date 1854
Priestly ordination
Ordained by Prince Lee
Date 1858
Episcopal consecration
Principal consecrator William Thomson, Archbishop of York
Co-consecrators 7 others
Date 25 April 1879
Place Westminster Abbey

Joseph Barber Lightfoot (13 April 1828 – 21 December 1889), also known as J. B. Lightfoot, was an English theologian and Bishop of Durham.

England Country in north-west Europe, part of the United Kingdom

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to the west and Scotland to the north-northwest. The Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

Theology Study of the nature of deities and religious belief

Theology is the critical study of the nature of the divine. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries.

Bishop of Durham Diocesan bishop in the Church of England

The Bishop of Durham is the Anglican bishop responsible for the Diocese of Durham in the Province of York. The diocese is one of the oldest in England and its bishop is a member of the House of Lords. Paul Butler has been the Bishop of Durham since his election was confirmed at York Minster on 20 January 2014. The previous bishop was Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury. The bishop is one of two who escort the sovereign at the coronation.

Contents

Life

Lightfoot was born in Liverpool, where his father John Jackson Lightfoot was an accountant. His mother, Ann Matilda Barber was from a family of Birmingham artists. He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, under James Prince Lee. His contemporaries included Brooke Foss Westcott and Edward White Benson. In 1847 Lightfoot went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and read for his degree along with Westcott. He graduated senior classic and 30th wrangler, and was elected a fellow of his college. [1] From 1854 to 1859 he edited the Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology. In 1857 he became tutor and his fame as a scholar grew. He was made Hulsean professor in 1861, and shortly afterwards chaplain to the Prince Consort and honorary chaplain in ordinary to Queen Victoria.

Liverpool City and Metropolitan borough in England

Liverpool is a city in North West England, with an estimated population of 491,500 within the Liverpool City Council local authority in 2017. Its metropolitan area is the fifth-largest in the UK, with a population of 2.24 million in 2011. The local authority is Liverpool City Council, the most populous local government district in the metropolitan county of Merseyside and the largest in the Liverpool City Region.

King Edwards School, Birmingham independent day school for boys in Birmingham, England

King Edward's School (KES) is an independent day school for boys in Edgbaston, an area of Birmingham, England. Founded by King Edward VI in 1552, it is part of the Foundation of the Schools of King Edward VI in Birmingham.

James Prince Lee schoolmaster, clergyman and bishop

James Prince Lee was an English clergyman and schoolmaster who became head master of King Edward's School, Birmingham, and later the first Bishop of Manchester.

In 1866 he was Whitehall preacher, and in 1871 he became canon of St Paul's Cathedral. The Times wrote after his death that

St Pauls Cathedral Church in London

St Paul's Cathedral, London, is an Anglican cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of London and the mother church of the Diocese of London. It sits on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grade I listed building. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. The present cathedral, dating from the late 17th century, was designed in the English Baroque style by Sir Christopher Wren. Its construction, completed in Wren's lifetime, was part of a major rebuilding programme in the City after the Great Fire of London. The cathedral building largely destroyed in the Great Fire, now often referred to as Old St Paul's Cathedral, was a central focus for medieval and early modern London, including Paul's walk and St. Paul's Churchyard being the site of St. Paul's Cross.

<i>The Times</i> British daily compact newspaper owned by News UK

The Times is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register, adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, itself wholly owned by News Corp. The Times and The Sunday Times do not share editorial staff, were founded independently, and have only had common ownership since 1967.

It was always patent that what he was chiefly concerned with was the substance and the life of Christian truth, and that his whole energies were employed in this inquiry because his whole heart was engaged in the truths and facts which were at stake.

In 1875 Lightfoot became Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity in succession to William Selwyn. In 1879 he was consecrated bishop of Durham in succession to Charles Baring; he was enthroned at Durham Cathedral on 15 May. He soon surrounded himself with a band of scholarly young men.

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.

William Selwyn DD, FRS, FRAS was a Church of England clergyman, canon of Ely Cathedral, Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity, and amateur astronomer.

Charles Baring Bishop of Durham; Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol

Charles Thomas Baring was an English bishop, noted as an Evangelical.

Lightfoot was never married. He died at Bournemouth and was succeeded in the episcopate by Westcott, his schoolfellow and lifelong friend. He served as President of the first day of the 1880 Co-operative Congress. [2]

Bournemouth Town in England

Bournemouth is a large coastal resort town on the south coast of England, east of the 96-mile-long (155 km) Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest in Dorset. With Poole to the west and Christchurch in the east, Bournemouth is part of the South East Dorset conurbation, which has a population of 465,000.

Co-operative Congress

The Co-operative Congress is the national conference of the UK Co-operative Movement. The first of the modern congresses took place in 1869 following a series of meetings called the "Owenite Congress" in the 1830s. Members of Co-operatives UK send delegates to the annual congress, where reports of national bodies are made and debates held on subjects of importance to the Co-operative Movement. The meetings also include the Annual General Meeting of Co-operatives UK.

Publications

Lightfoot wrote commentaries on the Epistle to the Galatians (1865), Epistle to Philippians (1868) and Epistle to the Colossians (1875). In 1874, the anonymous publication of Supernatural Religion, a work speculated by some to be authored by Walter Richard Cassels, attracted attention. In a series of papers in the Contemporary Review, between December 1874 and May 1877, Lightfoot undertook the defense of the New Testament canon. The articles were published in collected form in 1889. About the same time he was engaged in contributions to William Smith's Dictionary of Christian Biography and Dictionary of the Bible, and he also joined the committee for revising the translation of the New Testament.

Epistle to the Galatians book of the Bible

The Epistle to the Galatians, often shortened to Galatians, is the ninth book of the New Testament. It is a letter from Paul the Apostle to a number of Early Christian communities in Galatia. Scholars have suggested that this is either the Roman province of Galatia in southern Anatolia, or a large region defined by an ethnic group of Celtic people in central Anatolia.

Epistle to the Colossians book of the Bible

The Epistle of Paul to the Colossians, often referred to simply as Colossians, is the twelfth book of the New Testament. It was written, according to the text, by Paul the Apostle and Timothy to the Church in Colossae, a small Phrygian city near Laodicea and approximately 100 miles (160 km) from Ephesus in Asia Minor.

Walter Richard Cassels is the speculated author of the anonymous work Supernatural Religion.

The corpus of Lightfoot's writings include essays on biblical and historical subject matter, commentaries on Pauline epistles, and studies on the Apostolic Fathers . His sermons were posthumously published in four official volumes, and additionally in the Contemporary Pulpit Library series. At Durham he continued to work at his editions of the Apostolic Fathers, and in 1885 published an edition of the Epistles of Ignatius and Polycarp , collecting also materials for a second edition of Clement of Rome , which was published after his death (1st ed., 1869). He defended the authenticity of the Epistles of Ignatius.

  • Apostolic Fathers. Part I. (two vols). London: MacMillan and Co. 1890.
  • Apostolic Fathers. Part II. (three vols). London: MacMillan and Co. 1885–89.
  • Apostolic Fathers Abridged. London: MacMillan and Co. 1891.
  • Biblical Essays. London: MacMillan and Co. 1893.
  • Cambridge Sermons. London: MacMillan and Co. 1890.
  • Dissertations on the Apostolic Age. London: MacMillan and Co. 1892.
  • Essays on Supernatural Religion. London: MacMillan and Co. 1889.
  • Fresh Revision of the English New Testament. London: MacMillan and Co. 1871.
  • Leaders in the Northern Church. London: MacMillan and Co. 1890.
  • Historical Essays. London: MacMillan and Co. 1895.
  • Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul from Unpublished Commentaries. London: MacMillan and Co. 1895.
  • Ordination Addresses. London: MacMillan and Co. 1890.
  • Primary Charge. London: MacMillan and Co. 1882.
  • St. Clement of Rome. London: MacMillan and Co. 1869.
  • Saint Paul's Epistle to the Galatians. London: MacMillan and Co. 1865.
  • Saint Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon. London: MacMillan and Co. 1875.
  • Saint Paul's Epistle to the Philippians. London: MacMillan and Co. 1868.
  • The Christian Ministry. 1868.
  • Sermons preached in St. Paul's. London: MacMillan and Co. 1891.
  • Special Sermons. London: MacMillan and Co. 1891.
  • The Contemporary Pulpit Library: Sermons by Bishop Lightfoot. London: Swan Sonnenschein. 1892.

In 2014, it was announced that InterVarsity Press had agreed to publish about 1500 pages of previously unpublished biblical commentaries and essays by Lightfoot found in Durham Cathedral. [3] The first of the three volume set covers the Acts of the Apostles, [4] the second is a commentary on the Gospel of John [5] and the third is on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians and the First Epistle of Peter. [6]

Family

Lightfoot was the nephew of the artists Joseph Vincent Barber and Charles Vincent Barber and grandson of the artist and founding member of the Birmingham School of Art, Joseph Barber and great grandson of the founder of Newcastle's first library, Joseph Barber whose tomb is in Newcastle Cathedral. [7]

Related Research Articles

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Epistle to the Philippians eleventh book in the New Testament

The Epistle of Paul to the Philippians, often referred to simply as Philippians, is the eleventh book in the New Testament. Paul and Silas first visited Philippi in Greece during Paul's second missionary journey, which occurred between approximately 49 and 51 AD. Philippi was the location of the first Christian community established in Europe.

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Brooke Foss Westcott was a British bishop, biblical scholar and theologian, serving as Bishop of Durham from 1890 until his death. He is perhaps most known for co-editing The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881.

Pauline epistles New Testament books

The Pauline epistles, Epistles of Paul, or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen books of the New Testament, composed of letters which are largely attributed to Paul the Apostle, although authorship of some is in dispute. Among these letters are some of the earliest extant Christian documents. They provide an insight into the beliefs and controversies of early Christianity. As part of the canon of the New Testament, they are foundational texts for both Christian theology and ethics. The Epistle to the Hebrews, although it does not bear his name, was traditionally considered Pauline for a thousand years, but from the 16th century onwards opinion steadily moved against Pauline authorship and few scholars now ascribe it to Paul, mostly because it does not read like any of his other epistles in style and content. Most scholars agree that Paul really wrote seven of the Pauline epistles, but that four of the epistles in Paul's name are pseudepigraphic ; scholars are divided on the authenticity of two of the epistles.

The Apostolic Fathers were Christian theologians who lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, who are believed to have personally known some of the Twelve Apostles, or to have been significantly influenced by them. Their writings, though popular in Early Christianity, were not included in the canon of the New Testament. Many of the writings derive from the same time period and geographical location as other works of early Christian literature which came to be part of the New Testament. Some of the writings found among the Apostolic Fathers appear to have been highly regarded as some of the writings which became the New Testament.

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The Correspondence ofPaul and Seneca, also known as the Letters of Paul and Seneca or Epistle to Seneca the Younger, is a collection of correspondence claiming to be from Paul the Apostle to Seneca the Younger. There are 8 epistles from Seneca, and 6 replies from Paul. Jerome mentioned them in his De Viris Illustribus. Until the Renaissance, the epistles were seen as genuine, but scholars began to critically examine them in the 15th century, and today they are universally held to be forged. J. B. Lightfoot noted:

James Douglas Grant Dunn, also known as Jimmy Dunn, is a British New Testament scholar who was for many years the Lightfoot Professor of Divinity in the Department of Theology at the University of Durham, now Emeritus Lightfoot Professor. He has worked broadly within the Protestant tradition.

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Ralph Philip Martin was a British New Testament scholar.

C. K. Barrett British biblical scholar

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Joseph Hirst Lupton (1836–1905) was an English schoolmaster, cleric and writer.

References

  1. ↑ "Lightfoot, Joseph Barber (LTFT847JB)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  2. ↑ "Congress Presidents 1869-2002" (PDF). February 2002. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 May 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
  3. ↑ Ben Witherington III, "Text Archaeology: The Finding of Lightfoot's Lost Manuscripts," Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 40, No. 2 (March/April 2014), pp. 28, 71.
  4. ↑ Lightfoot, J. B. (2014). The Acts of the Apostles: A Newly Discovered Commentary. InterVarsity Press. ISBN   978-0-8308-9673-8.
  5. ↑ Lightfoot, J. B. (2015). The Gospel of St. John: A Newly Discovered Commentary. InterVarsity Press. ISBN   978-0-8308-2945-3
  6. ↑ Lightfoot, J. B. (2016). The Epistles of 2 Corinthians and 1 Peter: A Newly Discovered Commentary. InterVarsity Press. ISBN   978-0-8308-2946-0
  7. ↑ Chrystal & Laundon 2015, p. 120.

Sources

  • Treloar, Geoffrey R. (1998). Lightfoot the Historian: The Nature and Role of History in the Life and Thought of J.B. Lightfoot (1828-1889) as Churchman and Scholar. Mohr Siebeck. ISBN   978-3-16-146866-7.
  • McIntire, C.T. (2001). "Review of Lightfoot the Historian". Anglican and Episcopal History. 70 (2): 254–256. ISSN   0896-8039. JSTOR   42612184.
  • Wikisource-logo.svg Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Lightfoot, Joseph Barber". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  • Wikisource-logo.svg  Hort, Fenton John Anthony (1893). "Lightfoot, Joseph Barber". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography . 33. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  • "Lightfoot, Joseph Barber". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16650.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  • Chrystal, Paul; Laundon, Stan (2015). Secret Newcastle. Amberley. ISBN   978-1-4456-4139-3.
Church of England titles
Preceded by
Charles Baring 		Bishop of Durham
1879–1889		Succeeded by
Brooke Foss Westcott
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