Holiness is Wholeness: According to Johann Albrecht Bengel (from the past)


I read this recently regarding Johann Albrecht Bengel, also known as John Bengel, in a biography about him:

Of his progress in sacred learning at this period we have evidence in a Latin treatise which he composed "On the Holiness of God," (Syntagma de Sanctitate Dei); which is highly spoken of in the "Corona Tubigensis," anni 1718, but was never in its original form committed to the press. The principal substance of it was embodied in his later works, as in his Commentary on the Apocalypse, 3d edition page 310. It was a philosophical as well as theological treatise, and one of its objects was to show, from parallel passages of Scripture, that all the attributes are implied in the Hebrew expression qadosh (holy); and in hagios or hosios, by which it is rendered in the Septagint; in a word, that the Divine holiness comprehends all his supreme excellency. He alleged several reasons for it in accordance with Scripture, and adduced quotations from the eminent divines of every period, to show that it was no new opinion. But he modestly yet decidedly opposed the cabbalistic idea of Professor Neumann, of Breslaw, that every letter of the word kadosh contains some deep mystery, and he communicated the substance of his treaise to the professor himself, in a Latin letter.

This quotation comes from "A Memoir of the Life and Writings of John Albert Bengel" by John Christian Frederic Burk (translated from the German by Robert Francis Walker, M.A.). I plan to follow up on these comments and make some of what Bengel has to say available in English so that many more can enjoy his research. May God bless you richly this day.

In Christ,


Pastor Jon