Johann Gottfried Eichhorn
(1752-1827) succeeded
Michaelis (Johann David)
as Professor at Göttingen in 1788
Die hebräischen Propheten |
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History of New Testament Research: Michaelis /
Grotius /
Lightfoot /
Whitby /
Locke /
Eichhorn
Dividing Line Between Destruction of Jerusalem and General
Judgment - Matthew 25:14
WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID
Johann Peter Lange
"VII. Historico-Critical and
Rationalistic Period. Fundamental Tone or Key-note:
Predominant Volatilizing of Apocalyptic Eschatology ; especially the
Prophecy of the Millennial Kingdom ; amid a constantly gaining
confounding of such Prophecy with Chiliasm.
The motive or inciting cause of the period which we are at present
examining—a motive whose sketching by Lucke is not distinguished for
clearness—was, negatively, that system of criticism which maintained
that the Apocalypse consisted of purely supernatural predictions of
Church History and church-historical numbers ; and which applied such
exegesis to the support of chiliastic extravagances. Positively, it was
the felt need of a firm historical and psychological basis for the
prophetic glimpses of futurity. The errors of this new critical bent
were the issue, in part, of the delight which was occasioned by the
novel historical stand-point— historical, it was believed, for the first
time in a true sense. For the rest, these errors proceeded from doubt as
to the Spirit of Prophecy, as to the authenticity of the Apocalypse, as
to the demonic forms of the kingdom of darkness, and as to the reality
of Biblical Eschatology.
According to Lucke, Abauzit of Geneva inaugurated this tendency in his
Essai sur l' Apocalypse. "The Revelation, written probably under Nero,
is nothing—according to its own profession—but une extension de la
prophetic du Sauveur sur la ruine de l' Etat Judaique." The German
Wetstein was guilty of a curtailing and stinting of the Apocalypse,
similar to that attempted by the French Swiss. According to Wetstein,
Gog and Magog made their appearance in the rebellion instigated by
Barcochba. Harenberg took sides with Abauzit, submitting, however, that
the last four chapters of the Apocalypse are eschatological. He believed
the Book to have been originally written in Hebrew. Semler thought that
the true original spirit of the Apocalypse was Jewish chiliastic
fanaticism.
On the common basis of a one-sided criticism, Herder formed an
antithesis to Semler in this question as in other and more general
respects. The contrast is exhibited in his work entitled: Maran-atha,
das buch von der Zukunft des Herrn, des Neuen Testaments Siegel. [Maran-atha;
the Book of the Coming of the Lord: the Seal of the New Testament.] The
historical perspective of this book is, like that of Abauzit, barren and
contracted in the extreme: it consists of Jerusalem and the Jewish war.
The formal treatment of the Apocalyptic theme, on the contrary, is
enthusiastic, full of idealization, and appreciation of the figurative
language of the Orient (see Lucke's commendation). Herder called the
Apocalypse : "A picture-book, setting forth the rise, the visible
existence, and the future of Christ's Kingdom in figures and similitudes
of His first Coming, to terrify and to console." Hartwig, though the
disciple of Herder, abandoned the Oriental view for the Greek, holding,
with Paraeus, that the Apocalypse was a drama. This dramatical view was
subsequently fully carried out by Eichhorn. Others, taking a more
general, poetical view of the Apocalypse, made metrical versions of it;
of these the chief were those of Schreiber and Munter, and one by a
follower of Bengel, Ludwig von Pfeil.
The interpretation already advanced
by many, according to which the Apocalypse depicted the downfall of
Judaism and heathenism, and the tranquility and glory of the Kingdom of
Christ, re-appeared in the writings of Herrenschneider (Tentamen
Apocalypseos). Johannsen, in his Offenbarung Johannes, set
forth a similar view. Thoroughly novel and original, at variance both
with the ancient Church-historical and the modern synchrono-historical
view, is the book which appeared under the title of Briefe uber die
Offenbarung Johannis. Ein Buch fur die Starken, die schwach
heissen, Leipzig, 1784. [Letters on the Revelation of John. A
Book for the Strong, who are called Weak]. "The [anonymous] author
interprets all specials as generals, relative to the laws, arrangements
and developments of nature and of the human life in general; amid, and
according to, which laws, arrangements, and developments, God's Kingdom
on earth shall one day be perfected." Kleuker maintained once more the
eschatological signification of the Revelation (Ueber Ursprung und
Zweck, etc. [On the Origin and Design, etc.]). On the other
hand, Lucke mentions as followers of the bent of Herder and Eichhorn,
Lange, Von Hagen, Lindemann Matthai, Von Heinrichs (p. 1055)." (A
Commentary on the Holy Scriptures pp. 68-69)
J. Murray (1863)
"Alcasar,
a Spanish Jesuit, taking a hint from
Victorinus,
seems to have been the first (AD 1614) to have suggested that the
Apocalyptic prophecies did not extend further than to the overthrow of
Paganism by
Constantine. This
view, with variations by
Grotius,
is taken up and expounded by
Bossuet,
Calmet, De Sacy, Eichhorn, Hug, Herder, Ewald,
Moses Stuart,
Davidson. The general view of the school is that the Apocalypse described
the triumph of Christianity over Judaism in the first, and over Heathenism
in the third century." (A Dictionary of the Bible)
Benjamin
Warfield
(1)
The Preterist, which holds that all, or nearly all, the prophecies of
the book were fulfilled in the early Christian ages, either in the history
of the Jewish race up to A.D. 70, or in that of Pagan Rome up to the
fourth or fifth century. With Hentensius and Salmeron as
forerunners, the Jesuit Alcasar (1614) was the father of this school.
To it belong Grotius, Bossuet, Hammond, LeClerc, Wetstein, Eichhorn, Herder,
Hartwig, Koppe, Hug, Heinrichs, Ewald, De Wette, Bleek, Reuss,
Reville, Renan, Desprez, S. Davidson, Stuart, Lucke, Dusterdieck, Maurice,
Farrar, etc. " (Revelation)
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