John William Burgon

John William Burgon (21 August 1813 – 4 August 1888) was an English Anglican divine who became the Dean of Chichester Cathedral in 1876. He is remembered for his passionate defence of the historicity and Mosaic authorship of Genesis and of Biblical inerrancy in general.

Burgon was born at Smyrna, the son of an English merchant trading in Turkey who was also a skilled numismatist and afterwards became an assistant in the antiquities department of the British Museum. His mother is often said to have been Greek but was in fact the daughter of the Austrian consul at Smyrna and his English wife.

During his first year the family moved to London, where he was sent to school. After a few years of business life, working in his father's counting-house, Burgon went to Worcester College, Oxford, in 1841, and took his degree in 1845.

Burgon was elected to an Oriel fellowship in 1846. He was much influenced by his brother-in-law, the scholar and theologian Henry John Rose (1800–1873), a conservative Anglican churchman with whom he used to spend his long vacations. Burgon made Oxford his headquarters, while holding a living at some distance. In 1863 he was made vicar of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, having attracted attention by his vehement sermons against Essays and Reviews, a series of messages on biblical inspiration in which he defended against the findings of textual criticism and higher criticism the historicity and Mosaic authorship of Genesis, and Biblical inerrancy in general: "Either, with the best and wisest of all ages, you must believe the whole of Holy Scripture; or, with the narrow-minded infidel, you must disbelieve the whole. There is no middle course open to you."

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