Bauer

(Bruno), one of the boldest biblical critics of Germany, b. Eisenberg, 6 Sept. 1809. Educated at the University of Berlin, in 1834 he received a profe orship of theology. He first attained celebrity by a review of the Life of Jesus by Strau (1835). This was followed by his Journal of Speculative Theology and Critical Exposition of the Religion of the Old Testament . He then proceeded to a Review of the Gospel History , upon the publication of which (1840) he was deprived of his profe orship at Bonn. To this followed Christianity Unveiled (1843), which was destroyed at Zurich before its publication. This work continued his opposition to religion, which was carried still further in ironical style in his Proclamation of the Day of Judgement concerning Hegel the Atheist . Bauer’s heresy deepened with age, and in his Review of the Gospels and History of their Origin (1850), to which Apostolical History is a supplement, he attacked the historical truth of the New Testament narratives. In his Review of the Epistles attributed to St. Paul (1852) he tries to show that the first four epistles, which had hardly ever before been questioned, were not written by Paul, but are the production of the second century. In his Christ and the Cæsars he shows the influence of Seneca and Greco-Roman thought upon early Christianity. He died near Berlin, 13 April, 1882.