Editing Johann Salomo Semler

{{Short description|German church historian, biblical commentator and critic}}
[[File:Johann Salomo Semler 01.jpg|thumb|right|Johann Salomo Semler]]
'''Johann Salomo Semler''' (18 December 1725 – 14 March 1791) was a German church historian, biblical commentator, and critic of ecclesiastical documents and of the history of dogmas. He is sometimes known as "the father of German [[rationalism]]".

==Youth and education==
He was born at [[Saalfeld]] in [[Saxe-Saalfeld]], the son of a poor clergyman.  He grew up in [[pietism|pietistic]] surroundings, which powerfully influenced him his life through, though he never became a Pietist. In his seventeenth year he entered the [[University of Halle]], where he became the disciple, afterwards the assistant, and finally the literary executor of the orthodox rationalistic professor [[Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten|S. J. Baumgarten]]. He also wrote Latin poems. In 1749 he accepted the position of editor, with the title of professor, of the Coburg official ''Gazette''. But in 1751 he was invited to the [[University of Altdorf]] as professor of [[philology]] and [[history]], and in 1752 he became a professor of [[theology]] at Halle.

==Early work==
After the death of Baumgarten in 1757, Semler became head of the theological faculty, and the fierce opposition provoked by his writings and lectures only helped increase his fame as a professor. His popularity continued undiminished  until 1779. In that year he produced a reply (''Beantwortung der Fragmente eines Ungenannten'') to the Wolfenbuttel Fragments (see [[Hermann Samuel Reimarus|Reimarus]]) and to [[Karl Friedrich Bahrdt|K. F. Bahrdt]]'s confession of faith, a step which was interpreted by the extreme rationalists as a revocation of his own rationalistic position.

==Later work and impact==

===Contemporary perception===
Even the [[Prussia]]n government, which favoured Bahrdt, made known its displeasure at this new but quite consistent aspect of his position. But, though Semler was not inconsistent with himself in attacking the views of Reimarus and Bahrdt, his popularity began to decline, and towards the end of his life he felt a need to emphasize the apologetic and conservative value of true historical inquiry. His defence of the notorious edict of July 9, 1788, issued by the Prussian minister for ecclesiastical affairs, [[Johann Christoph von Wöllner]], the object of which was to enforce [[Lutheran orthodoxy]], might be cited as a sign of the decline of his powers and of an unfaithfulness to his principles. He died at [[Halle (Saale)|Halle]], [[Duchy of Magdeburg|Magdeburg]], exhausted and disappointed.

===Classification===
The importance of Semler, sometimes called "the father of German [[neology|rationalism]]", in the history of theology and the human mind is that of a critic of biblical and ecclesiastical documents and of the history of [[dogma]]s. He was not a philosophical thinker or theologian, though he insisted, with an energy and persistency before unknown, on certain distinctions of great importance when properly worked out and applied, e.g. the distinction between religion and theology, that between private personal beliefs and public historical creeds, and that between the local and temporal and the permanent elements of historical religion. His great work was that of the critic. He was the first to reject the equal value of the [[Old Testament|Old]] and [[New Testament]]s, the uniform authority of all parts of the [[Bible]], the divine authority of the traditional canon of Scripture, the inspiration and supposed correctness of the text of the Old and New Testaments, and, generally, the identification of revelation with Scripture.

Though to some extent anticipated by the British deist, [[Thomas Morgan (deist)|Thomas Morgan]], Semler was the first to take due note of and use for critical purposes the opposition between the [[Judaism|Judaic]] and [[anti-Judaic]] parties of the early church. He led the way in the task of discovering the origin of the Gospels, the [[Epistles]], the [[Acts of the Apostles]], and the [[Apocalypse]]. He revived previous doubts as to the direct Pauline origin of the [[Epistle to the Hebrews]], called in question Peter's authorship of the first epistle, and referred the second epistle to the end of the 2nd century. He wished to remove the Apocalypse altogether from the canon. In textual criticism Semler pursued further the principle of classifying manuscripts in families, adopted by [[Richard Simon (priest)|Richard Simon]] and [[Johann Albrecht Bengel]]. In church history Semler did the work of a pioneer in many periods and in several departments. [[Friedrich Tholuck]] pronounced him "the father of the history of doctrines," and [[Ferdinand Christian Baur]] "the first to deal with that history from the true critical standpoint." At the same time, it is admitted by all that he was nowhere more than a pioneer.

His concept of church has been contrasted with [[Friedrich Schleiermacher]]'s.<ref>Rendtorff, Trutz. ''Church and Theology: The Systematic Function of the Church Concept in Modern Theology'', Westminster Press, 1971, {{ISBN|978-0-664-20908-7}}.</ref>

==Bibliography==
[[August Tholuck|Tholuck]] gives 171 as the number of Semler's works, of which only two reached a second edition. Amongst the major ones are:

*''Commentatio de demoniacis'' (Halle, 1760, 4th ed. 1779)
*''Umständliche Untersuchung der damonischen Leute'' (1762)
*''Versuch einer biblischen Damonologie'' (1776)
*''Selecta capita historiae ecclesiasticae'' (3 vols., Halle, 1767–1769)
*''Abhandlung von freier Untersuchung des Kanon'' (Halle, 1771–1775)
*''Apparatus ad liberalem N. T. interpretationem'' (1767, ad V. T., 1773)
*''Institutio ad doctrinam Christ. liberaliter discendam'' (Halle, 1774),
*''Über historische, gesellschaftliche, und moralische Religion der Christen'' (1786)
*''Semler's Lebensbeschreibung, von ihm selbst abgefasst'' (Halle, 1781–1782) autobiography

For estimates of Semler, see:

*[[Wilhelm Gass]], ''Geschichte der protestantischen Dogmatik'' (Berlin, 1854–1867)
*[[Isaak August Dorner|Isaak Dorner]], ''Geschichte der protestantischen Theologie'' (Munich, 1867)
* article in [[Johann Jakob Herzog|Herzog]]'s ''Realencyklopädie''
*[[Adolf Hilgenfeld]], ''Historische-kritische Einleitung in das Neue Testament'' (Leipzig, 1875)
*[[Ferdinand Christian Baur|F. C. Baur]], ''Epochen der kirchlichen Geschichtsschreibung'' (1852)
*[[Albrecht Ritschl]], ''Geschichte des Pietismus'' (Bonn. 1880-1888)

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==References==
*{{EB1911|wstitle=Semler, Johann Salomo|volume=24|page=630}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Semler, Johann Salomo}}
[[Category:1725 births]]
[[Category:1791 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Saalfeld]]
[[Category:German Lutheran theologians]]
[[Category:German biblical scholars]]
[[Category:18th-century German Protestant theologians]]
[[Category:German male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:18th-century German male writers]]
[[Category:Lutheran biblical scholars]]