Robert H. Gundry
| Robert H. Gundry | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1932 |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Manchester University (England) |
| Occupation | Biblical Scholar |
Robert Horton Gundry (born 1932) is an American scholar and retired professor of New Testament studies and Koine Greek.
Gundry received B.A. and B.D. degrees from the Los Angeles Baptist College and Seminary in the 1950s, and in 1961 a Ph.D. from Manchester University, England, where he worked under F. F. Bruce. For 38 years, beginning in 1962, he taught at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. In 1997 the college installed Gundry in its first endowed faculty chair and soon afterwards established also the Robert H. Gundry Chair of Biblical Studies. Upon his retirement in 2000 the college made him professor emeritus and scholar-in-residence. Since then, he has been a frequent contributor to the periodical Books and Culture.
Besides many articles and reviews that have appeared in scholarly journals, Gundry has published major scholarly commentaries on the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew. The one on Matthew caused a controversy that led to his resignation from the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) at that society’s request in 1983. Voters favoring the request reckoned that the commentary was at odds with the society’s affirmation of scriptural inerrancy. Using redaction criticism, Gundry argued that Matthew tailored the story of Jesus, sometimes unhistorically, to meet the needs of the Gospel’s intended audience. Especially troubling to many in the ETS was Gundry’s contention that Matthew made unhistorical, theologically motivated revisions of the infancy story in Matthew 1 and Matthew 2.
Earlier, Gundry had been asked to furnish a commentary on Matthew in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary (EBC), a major evangelical series of commentaries published over the course of a decade or more in the 1970s and 1980s, as each section was completed. When he submitted his proposed commentary to Frank Gaebelein, general editor of the series, Gaebelein pronounced the commentary acceptable; but the subeditors Merrill C. Tenney and James M. Boice objected to its use of redaction criticism. Gaebelein pronounced acceptable Gundry’s revised version as well; but Tenney and Boice objected again, so that D. A. Carson of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School was assigned to write on Matthew. This assignment caused a delay of several years in the publication of the EBC’s volume on the Synoptic Gospels. Meanwhile, Eerdmans Publishing Company brought out a longer, more technical version of Gundry’s work.
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