Luther Allan Weigle

Luther Allan Weigle (September 11, 1880 – September 2, 1976) was an American Protestant religious scholar and educator who served as dean of Yale Divinity School. He is most known for leading the committee that created the Revised Standard Version (RSV) translation of the Bible. He was active in the ecumenical movement that sought to find common ground between different Christian denominations. He was a founding member of the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) and served on its board for decades.

Biography Luther Weigle was born on September 11, 1880, in Littlestown, Pennsylvania, the son of Rev. Elias Daniel Weigle, a Lutheran pastor, and Hannah Bream Weigle. He attended nearby Gettysburg College, graduating in 1900. He then studied at the affiliated Gettysburg Lutheran seminary, and he was ordained as a Lutheran pastor by the Allegheny Synod in 1903. During his studies, he learned Koine Greek, the language the New Testament is written in. He attended Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, for graduate school, where he earned his PhD in 1905. and the International Council of Religious Education.

Weigle opined on the secular American education system as well. He testified as an expert witness in Abington School District v. Schempp that Bible-reading in a public school could have a secular purpose and would not violate the separation of church and state. He generally considered that the 1st Amendment was intended to disallow government favoritism of any one particular denomination or sect, but that common Christian elements should usually be permissible. He was opposed to the Supreme Court decisions that restricted school prayer in the United States in 1962 and 1963, and favored a constitutional amendment to allow it more broadly.

Weigle's wife Clara Rosetta Boxrud died in 1964. Weigle himself died on September 2, 1976, in New Haven from medical complications after a fall. The couple was survived by 4 children and 20 grandchildren as of 1976.

Revised Standard Version

The work Weigle is best-remembered for is his work as chairman of the committee of 22 scholars that produced the Revised Standard Version, a new translation of the Bible. He was appointed to the committee in 1928. At the time, the 1901 American Standard Version (ASV) was considered something of a disappointment, and many English-speaking churches continued to use the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible. The National Council of Churches sought to find a new translation in 20th-century English that maintained the beauty of the KJV, avoided the somewhat stilted language of the ASV, and took into account the various discoveries of ancient manuscripts of Biblical works in the 19th and 20th century. The work took years, with the final committee meeting and starting its new translation in 1937 at the Yale Divinity School. The revised New Testament published in 1946, the revised Old Testament in 1952, and the revised Apocrypha published in 1957.

Selected works As author Weigle, L. A. (1911). The Pupil and the Teacher. Philadelphia: The United Lutheran Publication House. (New edition, 1929). Weigle, L. A., & Hallam, H. (1919). Training the Devotional Life. Boston: Pilgrim Press. Weigle, L. A. (1920). Talks to Sunday School Teachers. New York: Doran. Weigle, L. A. (1920). The Training of Children in the Christian Family. Boston, Chicago: The Pilgrim Press. Weigle, L. A. (1928). American Idealism (Vol. X). The Pageant of America. New Haven, Yale University Press. Weigle, L. A. (1937). We are able. New York: Harper & Brothers. Weigle, L. A. (1939). Jesus and the Educational Method. New York, Cincinnati: The Abingdon Press. Weigle, L. A. (1949). The English New Testament from Tyndale to the Revised Standard Version. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press. Weigle, L. A. (1956). The Living Word: Some Bible words explained. New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons. Weigle, L. A., & Bridges, R. (1960). The Bible Word Book: Concerning obsolete or archaic words in the King James version of the Bible. New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons.

As editor Bushnell, Horace. (1916). Christian Nurture. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. (Reprinted in 1947) The New Testament Octapla: Eight English versions of the New Testament in the Tyndale-King James tradition (1962). New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons. The Genesis Octapla: Eight English versions of the Bible in the Tyndale-King James tradition (1965). New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons.