On the Necessity of a Knowledge of the Original Languages of the Scriptures

On the Necessity of a Knowledge of the Original Languages of the Scriptures is an address by Charles Hodge (1797-1878), the Princeton Theological Seminary professor who was the central figure of nineteenth-century American Calvinist theology. Hodge taught at Princeton from 1822 until his death and produced the three-volume Systematic Theology that defined the Old Princeton school of conservative Reformed orthodoxy. This address argues for the necessity of Hebrew and Greek competence for serious ministerial work, against the rising pressure in the American churches to shorten theological education and produce ministers quickly for the expanding frontier. The piece is a primary document for the nineteenth-century American debate over theological education and for the formation of the Princeton tradition that ran through Warfield to Machen in the next generation. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.