Jakob van Bruggen (born 23 September 1936) is a Dutch

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

scholar. He served as Professor of New Testament at the

Theological University of the Reformed Churches Theological University of the Reformed Churches () is an academic theological seminary in the Dutch city of Utrecht (formerly Kampen). It was founded on 6 December 1854 in Kampen. The university primarily caters to ministerial education. In orde ...

in Kampen from 1967 to 2001. van Bruggen was born in Odoorn and studied at the Theological College in Kampen before becoming a minister of the

Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (Liberated) The Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (Liberated) () was an orthodox Calvinist federation of churches. This church body arose in 1944 out of the so-called Liberation (') from the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, when many pastors and me ...

. He gained his PhD from the

University of Utrecht Utrecht University (UU; , formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2023, it had an enrollment of 39,769 students, a ...

. van Bruggen edited the third series of ''Commentaar Nieuwe Testament'', and wrote a number of volumes, including those on Matthew,

Mark Mark may refer to: In the Bible * Mark the Evangelist (5–68), traditionally ascribed author of the Gospel of Mark * Gospel of Mark, one of the four canonical gospels and one of the three synoptic gospels Currencies * Mark (currency), a currenc ...

Luke Luke may refer to: People and fictional characters * Luke (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Luke (surname), including a list of people with the name * Luke the Evangelist, author of the Gospel of Luk ...

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

, and Galatians. van Bruggen is best known in the English-speaking world for his 1976 book ''The Ancient Text of the New Testament'' (Dutch: ''De tekst van het Nieuwe Testament''), in which he defended the

Byzantine text-type In the textual criticism of the New Testament, the Byzantine text-type (also called Traditional Text, Ecclesiastical Text, Constantinopolitan Text, Antiocheian Text, or Syrian Text) is one of the main Textual criticism#New Testament, text types. ...

) and for his 1978 work, ''The Future of the Bible'' (originally published in Dutch in 1975 as ''De toekomst van de bijbelvertaling''). According to

Theodore Letis Theodore Peter Letis (1951 – June 24, 2005) was an American theologian and church historian. He was an advocate of the Textus Receptus (TR). Letis was Lutheran, and argued for "the superiority of the TR based on the authority of the institutional ...

, "No single book has done more to alert confessional Christians - who still regard the Judeo-Christian Bible as an authoritative text - that a wolf was in the sheep pen" than ''The Future of the Bible''. In that work, van Bruggen "emphasized the critical role that the church has to play in Bible translation."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bruggen, Jakob van 1936 births Living people People from Borger-Odoorn Dutch biblical scholars New Testament scholars Reformed Churches (Liberated) Christians from the Netherlands 20th-century Dutch Calvinist and Reformed ministers Bible commentators Utrecht University alumni