 |
Robert H. Gundry | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 15, 1932 |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Biblical scholar |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Manchester University |
| Thesis | The Use of the Old Testament in St. Matthew’s Gospel with Special Reference to the Messianic Hope (1961) |
| Academic work | |
| Main interests | New Testament Greek with the Gospels and Pauline epistles |
Robert Horton Gundry (born 1932) is an American scholar and retired professor of New Testament studies and Koine Greek.
Gundry was born in 1932 to Norman C. and Lolita (née Hinshaw) Gundry. He is the older brother of Stanley N. Gundry.
Gundry received B.A. and B.D. degrees from the Los Angeles Baptist College and Seminary in the 1950s,and in 1961 a Ph.D. from Manchester University,England,where he worked under F. F. Bruce. For 38 years,beginning in 1962,he taught at Westmont College in Santa Barbara,California. In 1997 the college installed Gundry in its first endowed faculty chair and soon afterwards established also the Robert H. Gundry Chair of Biblical Studies. Upon his retirement in 2000 the college made him professor emeritus and scholar-in-residence. [1] He has been a frequent contributor to periodicals such as Books and Culture and Education and Culture.
Students of Gundry who have made notable scholarly contributions in biblical studies and theology include:Gregory L. Bahnsen,Philip Clayton,Kathleen E. Corley,Stephen C. Daley,Gary W. Deddo,C. Rosalee Velloso Ewell,Judith M. Gundry,Dennis E. Johnson,Roy D. Kotansky,Brian Lugioyo,Jennifer Powell McNutt,J. Webb Mealy,William B. Nelson,Roger J. Newell,Benjamin E. Reynolds,Mark L. Strauss,James E. Taylor,and Kevin J. Vanhoozer.
Besides many articles and reviews that have appeared in scholarly journals,Gundry has published major scholarly commentaries on the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew. The one on Matthew caused a controversy that led to his resignation from the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) at that society’s request in 1983. Voters favoring the request reckoned that the commentary was at odds with the society’s affirmation of scriptural inerrancy. Using redaction criticism,Gundry argued that Matthew tailored the story of Jesus,sometimes unhistorically,to meet the needs of the Gospel’s intended audience. Especially troubling to many in the ETS was Gundry’s contention that Matthew made unhistorical,theologically motivated revisions of the infancy story in Matthew.
Earlier,Gundry had been asked to furnish a commentary on Matthew in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary (EBC),a major evangelical series of commentaries published over the course of a decade or more in the 1970s and 1980s,as each section was completed. When he submitted his proposed commentary to Frank Gaebelein,general editor of the series,Gaebelein pronounced the commentary acceptable;but the subeditors Merrill C. Tenney and James M. Boice objected to its use of redaction criticism. Gaebelein pronounced acceptable Gundry’s successive revised versions as well;but Tenney and Boice objected again,to both of them,so that D. A. Carson of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School was assigned to write on Matthew. This assignment caused a delay of several years in the publication of the EBC’s volume on the Synoptic Gospels. Meanwhile,Eerdmans Publishing Company brought out a longer,more technical version of Gundry’s work.
According to Gundry,his work does not call into question the inerrancy of the Gospel of Matthew. He argues,to the contrary,that inerrancy must be considered in the twin lights of authorial intent and acceptable literary standards of the author’s time and place,and that Matthew intentionally and acceptably "treats us to history mixed with elements that cannot be called historical in a modern sense." [2] To be called inerrant,then,Matthew’s Gospel need not be measured against standards of modern historical writing. By contrast,says Gundry,"Luke states a historical purpose along lines that run closer to modern history writing ..." [3] These views were supported by a significant portion of the ETS;and after looking into the matter,the society’s executive committee cleared Gundry. But a campaign against him,spearheaded by Norman Geisler,resulted in the request that he resign. [4] Against his critics,Gundry has contended that he treats biblical wording more seriously than they do when they construct strained harmonizations to maintain historicity at every point. Outside certain quarters of the ETS,his work is generally considered a model of conservative evangelicalism.
Gundry’s other published books include The Use of the Old Testament in St. Matthew’s Gospel (based on his doctoral dissertation),Sōma in Biblical Theology (arguing for a physical meaning of “body,”even in figurative usage),and The Old Is Better (containing new and revised essays on various topics). His two books The Church and the Tribulation and First the Antichrist undermine the popular view that Christians will be “raptured”out of the world prior to a coming tribulation (see Second Coming). [5]
Yet another book,Jesus the Word according to John the Sectarian,argues that American evangelicalism needs to return,mutatis mutandis,to the enlightened fundamentalism of the early 20th century,as distinct from the obscurantist fundamentalism of the mid-20th century. [6] In 2000 Gundry presented the essence of Jesus the Word at the 30th annual lecture of the Institute for Biblical Research.
Extracurriculars:Teaching Christianly Outside Class contains talks delivered on various occasions at Westmont College,and the title Peter:False Disciple and Apostate according to Saint Matthew is self-explanatory. Gundry's latest book,Re-Views by an Evangelical Biblical Critic,gathers lightly edited,previously published review essays of books and films dealing in biblical text and translation,higher critical issues,literary portraits of Jesus,the relation between the Bible and tradition,and biographical portrayals of people associated with Scripture and its interpretation.
Gundry's textbook,A Survey of the New Testament,has been translated from English into Portuguese,Serbo-Croatian,Korean,Russian,and Turkish and produced as an eighteen-lesson DVD course in English. His Commentary on the New Testament includes his own,literal translation of the entire New Testament and verse-by-verse explanations of its original meaning and contains many independent judgments not found elsewhere in either scholarly or popular literature.
In 1994 Gundry was presented with a Festschrift, To Tell the Mystery: Essays on New Testament Eschatology in Honor of Robert H. Gundry (ed. Thomas E. Schmidt and Moisés Silva; Sheffield: JSOT, 1994). ISBN 1-85075-486-1 In 2014 a second Festschrift was presented to him: Reconsidering the Relationship between Biblical and Systematic Theology in the New Testament (ed. Benjamin E. Reynolds, Brian Lugioyo, and Kevin J. Vanhoozer; WUNT 2/369; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014). ISBN 978-3-16-152719-7
The Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) is a professional society of Biblical scholars, educators, pastors, and students "devoted to the inerrancy and inspiration of the Scriptures and the gospel of Jesus Christ" and "dedicated to the oral exchange and written expression of theological thought and research."
Frederick Fyvie Bruce was a Scottish evangelical scholar, author and educator who was Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester from 1959 until 1978 and one of the most influential evangelical scholars of the second half of the twentieth century. When the academic community looked down upon Evangelicals, Bruce demonstrated that a scholar holding evangelical views could do worthwhile academic work. He persuaded Evangelicals that they should not turn their backs on academic methods of Bible study, even if the results might differ from traditional evangelical views. As a result, he has been called the "Dean of Evangelical Scholarship".
Craig L. Blomberg is an American New Testament scholar. He is currently the Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the New Testament at Denver Seminary in Colorado where he has been since 1986. His area of academic expertise is the New Testament,including subjects relating to parables, miracles, the historical Jesus, Luke-Acts, John, 1 Corinthians, James, the historical trustworthiness of Scripture, financial stewardship, gender roles, the Latter Day Saint movement, hermeneutics, New Testament theology, and exegetical methods. Blomberg has written and edited multiple books.
Donald Arthur Carson is a Canadian evangelical theologian. He is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and president and co-founder of the Gospel Coalition. He has written or edited about sixty books and served as president of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2022.
The post-tribulation rapture doctrine is the belief in a combined resurrection and rapture, or gathering of the saints, after the Great Tribulation.
Richard N. Longenecker was a New Testament scholar. He held teaching positions at Wheaton College and Graduate School ; Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (1963-72); Wycliffe College ; University of St. Michael’s College ; and McMaster Divinity College. His education included B.A. and M.A. degrees from Wheaton College, and a Ph.D. from New College in the University of Edinburgh.
Douglas J. Moo is a Reformed New Testament scholar who, after teaching for more than twenty years at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois, served as Blanchard Professor of New Testament at the Wheaton College Graduate School from 2000 until his retirement in 2023. He received his Ph.D. at the University of St. Andrews, in St. Andrews, Scotland.
Leon Lamb Morris was an Australian New Testament scholar and theologian.
Ben Witherington III is an American Wesleyan-Arminian New Testament scholar. Witherington is Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary, a Wesleyan-Holiness seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, and an ordained pastor in the United Methodist Church.
Matthew 28:1 is the first verse of the twenty-eighth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. This verse opens the resurrection narrative as Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" visit Jesus' tomb after the crucifixion.
Matthew 28:2 is the second verse of the twenty-eighth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. This verse is part of the resurrection narrative. Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" were approaching Jesus' tomb after the crucifixion, when an earthquake occurred and an angel appeared.
George Eldon Ladd was a Baptist minister and professor of New Testament theology and exegesis at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, known in Christian eschatology for his promotion of inaugurated eschatology and "futuristic post-tribulationism."
Bruce K. Waltke is an American Reformed evangelical professor of Old Testament and Hebrew. He has held professorships in the Old Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary, Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida, and Knox Theological Seminary in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
Robert Laird Harris was a Presbyterian minister, church leader, and Old Testament scholar.
Grant R. Osborne was an American theologian and New Testament scholar. He was Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
Gregory Kimball Beale is a biblical scholar, currently a Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. He is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He has made a number of contributions to conservative biblical hermeneutics, particularly in the area of the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament and is one of the most influential and prolific active New Testament scholars in the world. He served as the president of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2004. In 2013, he was elected by Westminster Theological Seminary to be the first occupant of the J. Gresham Machen Chair of New Testament. At his inauguration he delivered an address titled The Cognitive Peripheral Vision of Biblical Writers.
Merrill Chapin Tenney was an American professor of New Testament and Greek and author of several books. He was the general editor of the Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary, and served on the original translation team for the New American Standard Bible.
Mark Lehman Strauss is an American biblical scholar and professor of the New Testament at Bethel Seminary San Diego, which is part of Bethel University, Minnesota. His areas of expertise include New Testament Gospels and Bible translation.
Craig S. Keener is an American Protestant theologian, Biblical scholar and professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary.
F. David Farnell is an American New Testament scholar, Christian minister, and is the new pastor of theological training at Redeemer Bible Church in Phoenix, Arizona. He was formerly professor of New Testament studies at The Master's Seminary. He promotes a conservative approach to New Testament studies. Farnell's works include the book The Jesus Crisis: The Inroads of historical Criticism into Evangelical Scholarship and The Jesus Quest: The Danger from Within. His writings on biblical inerrancy have been endorsed by John F. MacArthur, Albert Mohler, and Paige Patterson. He is also the pastor of Grace Bible Church in Oxnard, California.
