Merrill Chapin Tenney (April 16, 1904 – March 18, 1985) was an American professor of
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 ...
and Greek and author of several books. He was the general editor of the
Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary, and served on the original translation team for the
New American Standard Bible
The New American Standard Bible (NASB, also simply NAS for "New American Standard") is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English. Published by the Lockman Foundation, the complete NASB was released in 1971. New revisions were publis ...
.
Background and education
Tenney was born April 16, 1904, in
Chelsea, Massachusetts, to Wallace Fay Tenney and Lydia Smith Goodwin.
He earned a diploma from
Nyack Missionary Training Institute (1924),
his
Th.B. from
Gordon College of Theology and Missions (1927), his
A.M. from
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...
(1930), and his
Ph.D. in Biblical and Patristic Greek from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
(1944).
He married Helen Margaret Jaderquist (1904–1978) in 1930, and together they had three sons, John Merrill (who died in childhood), Robert Wallace and Philip Chapin.
Academic career
Tenney briefly served as pastor of Storrs Avenue Baptist Church in
Braintree, Massachusetts (1926–1928), and began teaching at Gordon College while still a student there.
After graduation, he joined the faculty and was professor of New Testament and Greek until moving to
Wheaton College in 1944, where he would eventually become dean of the graduate school from 1947 to 1971. Tenney was Henry Clarence Thiessen's chosen associate and (accordingly) an advocate of fundamentalism.
[Keith Call]
Thiessen and Determinism’s cold and chilling effects
Wheaton College Archives & Special Collections. Quote: "Responding with a letter to Buswell, Thiessen recounts his own impressive academic qualifications and that “…there may be a way of realizing my ideal at Wheaton College.” Specifically, this meant an ambition to establish “…a first class theological school of the fundamentalist and premillennial type in the North…” .... As the curriculum solidified and expanded, he chose Dr. Merrill Tenney as his associate." He retired in 1977, but continued teaching as professor emeritus until 1982.
Legacy and death
In 1951, Tenney became the second president of the
Evangelical Theological Society. In 1975, a volume of essays entitled ''Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic Interpretation'' () was published in his honor. Tenney died in Wheaton on March 18, 1985.
Selected works
Books
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
As editor
*
Articles and chapters
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
References
Further reading
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tenney, Merrill C.
1904 births
1985 deaths
Writers from Chelsea, Massachusetts
American biblical scholars
Boston University alumni
Harvard Divinity School alumni
Wheaton College (Illinois) faculty
Translators of the Bible into English
New Testament scholars
20th-century American translators
Presidents of the Evangelical Theological Society