BAUR, FERDINAND CHRISTIAN (1792—1860), [F.C. Baur] - One of the leaders of the field of so-called Textual Criticism, who used his academic and professorial university position, to attack the Bible, the inspiration of the books of the Bible, and Jesus Christ for nearly Forty Years.  Baur inspired not only many leaders in the next generations of Bible-Attacker, but many who would become professors and academics at Universities and Colleges in Germany, and in England (and throughout the British Empire of that time) AND the United States. (Westcott and Hort spoke favorably of the Textual Critics).

F. C Baur - leader of the Tubiugen school of theology (Germany), was born at Schmiden, near Canstatt, on the 21st of June 1792. After receiving an early training in the theological seminary at Blaubeuren, he went in 1809 to the university of Tubingen. Here he studied for a time under Ernst Bengel, grandson of the eminent New Testament critic, Johann Albrecht (J.A.) Bengel, and at this early stage in his career he seems to have been under the influence of the old Tubingen schooL But at the same time the philosophers Immanuel Fichte and Friedrich Schelling were creating a wide and deep impression. In 1817 Baur returned to the theological seminary at Blaubeuren as professor.

This move marked a turning-point in his life, for he was now able to set to work upon those investigations on which his reputation rests. He had already, in 1817, written a review of G. Kaiser’s Biblisch Theologie for Bengel’s journals; its tone was moderate and conservative. When, a few years after, his appointment at Blaubeuren, he published his first important work in 1824-1825, it became evident that he had made a deeper study of philosophy, ‘and had come under the influence of Schelling and more particularly of Friedrich Schleiermacher. The learning of the work was fully recognized, and in 1826 the author was called to Tubingen as professor of theology.

It is with Tiibingen that his greatest literary achievements are associated. His earlier publications here treated of mythology and the history of dogma. Das man’ichdische Religionssystem appeared in 1831, Apollonius von Tyana in 1832, Die christliche Gnosis in 1835, and Uber das Christlicke im Platonismus oder Socrates und Christus in 1837. As Otto Pfleiderer (Development of Theology, p. 285) observes, " the choice not less than the treatment of these subjects is indicative of the large breadth of view and the insight of the historian into the comparative history of religion." Meantime Baur had exchanged one master in philosophy for another, Schleiermacher for Hegel. In doing so, he had adopted completely the Hegelian philosophy of history. 

"Without philosophy," he has said, "history is always for me dead and dumb." The change of view is illustrated clearly in the essay, published in the Tubinger Zeitschrift for 1831, on the Christ-party in the Corinthian Church, Die Christuspartei in der korintkischen Gemeinde, der Gegensatz des paulinischen und petrinischen in dcv ältesten Kirche,  Apostel Petrus in Rom, the trend of which is suggested by the title. Baur contends that St Paul was opposed in Corinth by a Jewish-christian party which wished to set up its own form of Christian religion instead of his universal Christianity. He finds traces of a keen conflict of parties in the post-apostolic age.

Note to reader: You will notice again the theme of "the Conflict" advocated by a textual critic : The Conflict between the Apostles and some other group, and the results which supposedly caused the Bible and/or Christianity to be altered in some fundamental way, in order to make it appear as though Historic Christianity were unhistoric and unreliable. 

The premise and the research were entirely lacking, but the conclusion was affirmed by F.C. Baur in any case. He used his academic positions to influence others against Christianity, the Bible and the Deity of Christ. For those things - in the name of his work - F.C. Baur is still revered today, especially by Modern Version advocates and so-called "Textual Critics".

One of the concepts that Baur promoted was that "the person of Jesus cannot have been the incarnation of a type destined to serve as a norm for the following generations". He would use this premise to build a case against the exclusive claims of Christ, and substitute those claims for competing groups of false Christians, each hoping to dominate over the other. But this theory of Baur has no historical basis. But the theory of Baur triumphed over the facts of History.

The theory of Baur - About the conflict between various kinds of Christianity [and a noticeably ABSENT GOD to oversee Early Christianity]  is further developed in a later work (1835, the year in which David Strauss’ Leben Jesus {Life of Jesus} was published), Uber die sogenannten Pastoralbriefe. In this Baur attempts to prove that the false teachers mentioned in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus are the Gnostics, particularly the Marcionites, of the second century, and consequently that the Epistles were produced in the middle of this 2nd Century in opposition to Gnosticism. He next proceeded to investigate the Pauline Epistles and the Acts of the Apostles in the same manner, publishing his results in 1845 under the title Paul us, der Apostel Jesu Christi, Leben und Wirken, seine Brief  und seine Lehre. In this he contends that only the Epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians and Romans are genuinely Pauline, and that the Paul of Acts is a different person from the Paul of these genuine Epistles, the author being a Paulinist who, with an eye to the different parties in the Church, is at pains to represent Peter as far as possible as a Paulinist and Paul as far as possible as a Petrinist. 

In other words, Baur tries to suggest that the author of many epistles in the Bible - Paul - is not ONE person, but rather many different people, all of whom had the name of "Paul". It was a clever way to attack and undermine the Bible, by 1) upholding the name of "Pual", while 2) suggesting that the "Paul" upheld was NOT the SAINT PAUL known to Christians since early Christianity.

But Baur was a theologian and historian as well as a Biblical critic. As early as 1834 he published a strictly theological work, Gegensatz des Katholicismus und Protestantismus nach den Prinzipien und Hauptdogmen der beiden Lehrbegriffe, a "defense" of Protestantism on the same lines as Scbleiermacher’s work, and a vigorous reply to J. Mdhler’s Sytnbolik (1833). This was followed by his larger histories of dogma, and several other books. The value of these works is impaired somewhat by Baur’s habit of making the history of dogma conform to the formulae of Hegel’s philosophy, a procedure "which only served to obscure the truth and profundity of his conception of history as a true development of the human mind" (Pfieiderer). Baur, however, soon came to attach more importance to personality, and to distinguish more carefully between religion and philosophy. The change is marked in his Epochen der kirchlichen Geschichtschreibung (1852), and other works preparatory to his Kirchengeschichte, in which the change of view is specially pronounced. The Kirchengescichle was published in five volumes during the years 1853—1863, partly by Baur himself, partly by his son, Ferdinand Baur, and his son-in-law, Eduard Zeller, from notes and lectures which the author left behind him. 

Baur’s views were revolutionary and often extreme; but, whatever may be thought of them, it is admitted that as a critic he, rendered a great service to theological science. " One thing is certain: New Testament study, since his time, has had a different colour" (H. S. Nash). He has had a number of disciples or followers, who have in many cases modified his positions. Rendering service to "Theological Science" ["textual criticism"] is one thing. Rendering service to Jesus Christ and His Church was something altogether different. 

I Corinthians 15:16 "For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:

17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.

18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.

19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

F.C. Baur was one of the strongest voices of Textual Criticism against the Bible. His influence was felt for decades in Germany first, before his followers made their way into American Seminaries and began consciously weakening the church, Christianity, and Biblical Theology which the Protestant Reformation had fought so hard to achieve.

Sources: Ravenous Wolves: Textual Criticism and the Abandonement of the Reformation- A History of HIgher Criticism and German Theology by Lichtenberger. In addition, the works of the subjects of this biography, and Early Editions of Ency. Brit. 

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