Preface
The early days of the seminary's history, which was so close to Dr. Some future historian must give the objective assessment of the transitional times in which we now live. Professor William Mueller has only become a part of the seminary and the Southern Baptist Convention since World vy ar II.
Thus, he brings the perspective of a European scholar not only to the life of the institution, but to the entire American scene. But he writes not as an outsider, but as one who has chosen to belong to the heritage he now records. While the institution may wish to highlight certain persons and events in its history, Professor Mueller has endeavored to maintain the balance of a true historian to the end, so that we may understand the romantic story of the first hundred years of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, with its trials and its triumphs, used as a guide for all living in this second century and beyond.
Contents
Early Struggles for an Educated Ministry
The great majority of our Southern Baptist ministers of the last century had little or no training in the schools. The organization of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845 left the South without a theological seminary for its ministry. The organizers of the Southern Baptist Convention discussed from the beginning the question of establishing a seminary of their own.
Johnson, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, also read an elaborate essay in favor of establishing a central theological seminary. Be probably had very little time to teach during the next session. Due to a complete lack of faculty, the opening of the new Southern Baptist Theological Seminary was delayed until the fall of 1859.
James P. Boyce, Found er
On April 22, 1846, he was baptized into the fellowship of the First Baptist Church of Charleston by the visiting preacher. In the fall of that year, Boyce became the moderator of the Charleston Baptist Association, the second oldest in the United States. A HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTISTE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. one of the Twelve Apostles could have been admitted as a regular student to one of our country's standard theological seminaries.".
He considered that knowledge of the Koran in the original was indispensable for Christian missionaries working among Muslims. Boyce, showing the developments of the first three centuries, also referred to the confessions that the fathers of the church proclaimed. Students without a classical training mingled freely with graduates of the best American universities and colleges.
JamesP. Boyce, Administrator and Treasurer
Instead, he praised the seminary's wise plans for the future and praised the work of the ministry. From November 1864 until the end of the war, Boyce was aide-de-camp to Governor A. Boyce himself contributed a thousand dollars to the costs of the first post-war session of 1865-1866.
The seriousness of the seminary's plight around 1874 is indicated by a moving letter that Dr. Until then he had only been president of the faculty and treasurer and financial agent of the seminary. The seminary is his monument, and a blessed memory of him is written in the hearts of the people of God." 23.
The Faithful Four: the Original Faculty
Broadus was not only eminent in homiletics and preaching, he also excelled as a skilled interpreter of the New Testament. He was one of the most famous preachers, not only in the South, but also in the North. In this part of the Seminary's history, the author is indebted to Dr. THE FAITHFUL FOUR: THE ORIGINAL FACULTY.
34;one of the most brilliant students that Moses Stuart [of Andover Seminary] ever trained." 70 This was Dr. From the beginning of its existence Basil Manly was secretary of the faculty of Southern Seminary. Elford, could a reports monthly distribution of twenty-five thousand copies of Kind Words in the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention.
But the responsibility of his large family, the uncertainty of the times, and the "corruption. The fourth member of the original faculty of the Southern Seminary was Professor William Williams. Williams first came under fire from some of the brethren of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Professor Williams delivered an address in the form of the annual sermon at the Southern Baptist Convention in St. 98 Proceedings of the Sixteenth Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention held at the Third Baptist Church, St. Greenville, South Carolina, newspapers and the denominational periodicals.
Thoroughly Furnished unto All Good Works
Chambliss, from Alabama, stayed for two years, becoming Southern Seminary's first full graduate. When thirty-five Princeton Seminary students pledged themselves for foreign missionary service, a Seminary editor. The core of Southern Seminary's library was in the library of the Divinity Department of Furman University.
The Library of the Theological Department of Furman University has not yet been rated. Basil Manly, Sr., the first president of the Board of Trustees, instructed before his death in 1869 that his library be given to the Seminary.30 Before Dr. two thousand volumes.
Sampey "called attention to the fact that during the meeting of the Board of Trustees in Washington, D. In 1891 the Memorial Library, the first permanent home of the Southern Seminary library, was erected. The second library building of the Seminary was occupied on the new campus known as The Beeches in the spring of 1926 during the administration of Dr.
The first Southern Seminary library catalog, completed in 1879, shows that the more than seven thousand books had been carefully selected. Seven books by this author were included in the early catalog of the Seminary library. Martin Luther's Galatians was the only work of the great reformer in the seminary's original collection.
Boyce's personal library was also available to the students and professors of the Seminary from the beginning.
Crawford Howell Toy
According to Professor David Gordon Lyon of Harvard University, Toy "was of excellent stock, the inheritor of the best traditions of learning." 3 He enjoyed rare educational opportunities, was endowed with native abilities, and had the determination to make the most of them. He had also been convinced of the plausibility of Kuenen-Wellhausen's theory of Pentateuchal criticism. If the Darwinian theory of the origin of man has been accepted, then it becomes easy to conclude that the first chapter of Genesis is in no way true history.
This conviction will seem to the critic to justify his omitting various books and parts of books at other periods of Israel's history, in order to make that history an orderly evolution from simpler to more complex. These views would certainly be supported by some popular theories, according to which the first six books of the Old Testament were put together from several different documents, as indicated by certain key terms, and other characteristic marks of style and tone. 6. 34; He was entreated to leave only those theoretical questions and to teach the students what they needed." 7 It was argued that "the vast majority of students were quite unprepared for the proper consideration of any such theoretical questions and had to are guided in the Old Testament as it stands." 8.
Toy realizes that such teaching is completely out of the question in this institution. 34; There is still a great need for a good book that will make a commitment to modern methods for the exegesis of evangelical history.” He also noted the fact that Johns Hopkins University has only eighteen out of sixty-four. there were students (including colleagues).
He inaugurated the Semitic Department, established in 1881 the Harvard Semitic Club, a year later organized the Harvard Semitic Seminar and a little later also the Harvard Club for the Study of the History of Religions. The toy entitled Panbabylonianism prompts him to have been a judicious critic of the views of such men as Stucken, Winkler, and Alfred Jeremias. His conclusion on this theory is that "astralism is positively hostile to an understanding of the Bible." 17.
Toy may have led to a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the principles of progress must remain an open question.
William Heth Whitsitt, Church Historian
The student body of the Seminary stood at 267 at the end of the academic session of 1894-95. He also reported on his findings to the faculty and students of the Seminary in the opening address of the session of 1880-81. Eaton, pastor of the Walnut Street Baptist Church as well as a trustee of the Seminary.
Baptist writers from the North and the South and even from Europe contributed to the debate on these issues. It should be noted that Northen's resolution leading to the Board of Trustees' vote of confidence in the resignation of Dr. Whitsitt as president of the seminary, but retained him as professor of church history.
Greene wrote to the chairman of the Board of Trustees that he declined the proposed election with regret. Mullins the invitation of the board to become the fourth president of Southern Baptist Seminary. Mullins was out of danger and the nurse left if they talked about the problem.
