STUART, MOSES
MOSES (26 March 1780, Wilson, CT-4 January 1852, Andover, MA). Education: B.A., Yale College, 1799; studied law, Newtown, CT, 1801-2. Career: Schoolteacher, North Fairfield, CT, 1799-1800; tutor, Yale College, 1802-4; supply preacher, 1804-6; minister, First Congregational Church, New Haven, CT, 1806-10; professor of Sacred Literature, Andover Theological Seminary, 1810-48.
Known as "The Father of American Biblical Literature," Moses Stuart knew no Hebrew until after he was appointed professor of sacred literature at Andover. He was called to the position largely because of his intelligence and his Calvinist orthodoxy. His intelligence is apparent in his having graduated top in his class at Yale, and his having read Jonathan Edwards· on the freedom of the will when he was twelve. The conservatism was reflected in his work with Timothy Dwight· while at Yale, and in the fact that while a minister in New Haven, he contributed to the Panoplist, edited by Jedidiah Morse*.
Stuart set about learning Hebrew with a thoroughness that made him the leading biblical scholar of his day. He wrote his own Hebrew grammar, and wanting to be able to publish Hebrew in America, he imported the appropriate fonts and did the typesetting himself when no one else could. These activities were eminently orthodox, but he aroused some fears when he tackled another language, German, with the intention of studying the latest works of biblical criticism. German scholarship would eventually cast doubt on the unity and divine inspiration of the Bible, but in Stuart's hands, the new tools of German research tended to reinforce his own conservative orthodoxy, leading him, he supposed, to a deeper understanding of biblical truth.
Stuart was one of the foremost opponents of the emerging Unitarian denomination, calling it a halfway house to infidelity. While at Andover, Stuart educated fifteen hundred future ministers, one hundred missionaries, seventy professors and college presidents, and thirty translators of the Bible. A colleague at Andover said of him, "Mr. Stuart's vocation was to call back the Bible, the genuine, original Bible, in its true interpretation, into the Theology of the Anglo-Saxon nations." He had been a dynamic preacher during his short ministry at New Haven, and he brought his forensic ability to Andover, where "the lecture room was his paradise:" Stuart was famed for his mental energy, and left a reputation for efficient use of his time that a modem scholar might envy. According to
William Sprague, he could work only four hours a day, "but these four hours came every day, and his power of accomplishment was amazing. He would write pages while a more formal man would be adjusting his spectacles and nibbling his pen."
Moses Stuart is a good example-of the sort of religious conservative, common in his age, who could confidently embrace new scientific ways of understanding the Bible and the world-without realizing that as the nineteenth century wore on, the relationship between science and religion would become increasingly strained.
Bibliography
A: Letters to the Rev. Wm. E. Channing (Andover, 1819); A Hebrew Grammar (Andover, 1821); A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 2 vols. (Andover, 1827-28); Hints on the Interpretation of Prophecy (Andover, 1842); A Critical History and Defense of the Old Testament Canon (Andover, 1845); A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Boston, 1850).
B: AAP 2,475-81; BSGYC 5, 373-82; DAB 18, 174-75; DARB, 442-43; NCAB 6, 244-45; SH 11, 116-17; William Adams, A Discourse on the Life and Services of Professor Moses Stuart (New York, 1852).
Known as "The Father of American Biblical Literature," Moses Stuart knew no Hebrew until after he was appointed professor of sacred literature at Andover. He was called to the position largely because of his intelligence and his Calvinist orthodoxy. His intelligence is apparent in his having graduated top in his class at Yale, and his having read Jonathan Edwards· on the freedom of the will when he was twelve. The conservatism was reflected in his work with Timothy Dwight· while at Yale, and in the fact that while a minister in New Haven, he contributed to the Panoplist, edited by Jedidiah Morse*.
Stuart set about learning Hebrew with a thoroughness that made him the leading biblical scholar of his day. He wrote his own Hebrew grammar, and wanting to be able to publish Hebrew in America, he imported the appropriate fonts and did the typesetting himself when no one else could. These activities were eminently orthodox, but he aroused some fears when he tackled another language, German, with the intention of studying the latest works of biblical criticism. German scholarship would eventually cast doubt on the unity and divine inspiration of the Bible, but in Stuart's hands, the new tools of German research tended to reinforce his own conservative orthodoxy, leading him, he supposed, to a deeper understanding of biblical truth.
Stuart was one of the foremost opponents of the emerging Unitarian denomination, calling it a halfway house to infidelity. While at Andover, Stuart educated fifteen hundred future ministers, one hundred missionaries, seventy professors and college presidents, and thirty translators of the Bible. A colleague at Andover said of him, "Mr. Stuart's vocation was to call back the Bible, the genuine, original Bible, in its true interpretation, into the Theology of the Anglo-Saxon nations." He had been a dynamic preacher during his short ministry at New Haven, and he brought his forensic ability to Andover, where "the lecture room was his paradise:" Stuart was famed for his mental energy, and left a reputation for efficient use of his time that a modem scholar might envy. According to
William Sprague, he could work only four hours a day, "but these four hours came every day, and his power of accomplishment was amazing. He would write pages while a more formal man would be adjusting his spectacles and nibbling his pen."
Moses Stuart is a good example-of the sort of religious conservative, common in his age, who could confidently embrace new scientific ways of understanding the Bible and the world-without realizing that as the nineteenth century wore on, the relationship between science and religion would become increasingly strained.
Bibliography
A: Letters to the Rev. Wm. E. Channing (Andover, 1819); A Hebrew Grammar (Andover, 1821); A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 2 vols. (Andover, 1827-28); Hints on the Interpretation of Prophecy (Andover, 1842); A Critical History and Defense of the Old Testament Canon (Andover, 1845); A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Boston, 1850).
B: AAP 2,475-81; BSGYC 5, 373-82; DAB 18, 174-75; DARB, 442-43; NCAB 6, 244-45; SH 11, 116-17; William Adams, A Discourse on the Life and Services of Professor Moses Stuart (New York, 1852).