George Bush (June 12, 1796 – September 19, 1859) was an American biblical scholar, pastor, abolitionist, and academic.[1] A member of the Bush family, he is a distant relative of both President George H. W. Bush and President George W. Bush;[2] his cousin was Obadiah Newcomb Bush, the great-great-grandfather of George H. W. Bush.
Born in Norwich, Vermont, Bush graduated from Dartmouth College in 1818, and then studied theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he was a tutor 1823–1824. He was ordained in the Presbyterian ministry, spent four years as a Christian missionary in Indiana, and in 1831 became professor of Hebrew and oriental literature at New York University.[3]
His first book, The Life of Mohammed, was the first American biography of the religious leader. It refers to Muhammad as "remarkable" and "irresistibly attractive", but is a largely negative assessment of him, depicting him as a fraud. It also takes a dim view of the state of Christianity of Muhammad's age. The book fell out of print, but became briefly controversial in Egypt in 2004.[4]
In 1844 Bush published a book entitled The Valley of Vision; or, The Dry Bones of Israel Revived. In it he denounced "the thralldom and oppression which has so long ground them (the Jews) to the dust," and called for "elevating" the Jews "to a rank of honorable repute among the nations of the earth" by restoring the Jews to the land of Israel where the bulk would be converted to Christianity.[5] This, according to Bush, would benefit not only the Jews, but all of mankind, forming a "link of communication" between humanity and God. "It will blaze in notoriety....It will flash a splendid demonstration upon all kindreds and tongues of the truth."[6]
また、1844年には、聖書の預言の解明に特化した月刊誌『ヒエロファント』を発行し、ニューヨークで『アナスタシス』という著作を発表し、その中で肉体の文字通りの復活の教義に反対した。この後者の著作は大きな注目を集め、批判を受けたが、彼は『キリストの復活』でそれに答えた。[ 3 ] [ 7 ]
1845年に彼はスウェーデンボルグ主義を受け入れ、新しい信仰を擁護する多くの著作を執筆した。[ 8 ]彼は1845年にエマヌエル・スウェーデンボルグの日記を翻訳して出版し、ニュー・チャーチ・リポジトリの編集者となった。[ 3 ]