Adolph Saphir
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Rev Dr Aaron Adolph Saphir DD (26 September 1831 – 4 April 1891) was a Hungarian Jew who converted to Christianity and became a Jewish Presbyterian missionary.
Life
He was born in eastern Budapest (Pest) on 26 September 1831, the son of Israel Saphir, a Jewish merchant[1] and brother of the poet, Moritz Gottlieb Saphir. Adolph's mother was Henrietta Bondij.[2]
In 1843, his family converted to Christianity through the Jewish mission of the Free Church of Scotland.[3] In the autumn of 1843 his father sent him to train as a Christian minister for the Free Church of Scotland at New College, Edinburgh. This proved impractical due to his age and lack of English. He attended a Gymnasium in Berlin from 1844 to 1848 much improving his English. From 1848 he studied at Glasgow University graduating MA in 1854.[2]
Saphir travelled to Edinburgh with Rabbi Duncan and Alfred Edersheim.[4] He then studied at the Marischal College, Aberdeen. In 1854, Saphir was appointed a missionary to the Jews.[2] He worked briefly in Hamburg before moving to England where he served in South Shields, at St Mark's in Greenwich's South Street, and Notting Hill. Saphir became a minister of the Presbyterian Church of England, and received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from the University of Glasgow in 1878.[5]
He died of Angina pectoris on 3 April 1891.
Publications
- The Hidden Life
- The Divine Unity of Scripture
- Jesus and the Sinner
- Christ and the Church
- The Jews as Custodians and Witnesses
- Christ and the Scriptures
- Christian Perfection: An Address
- Christ Crucified
- The Epistle to the Hebrews (1874)
- The Sinner and the Saviour
- The Lord's Prayer (1872)
Family
Adolph Saphir's siblings were also involved in the Hebrew Christian movement and missionary activities: Philipp, whose letters and diaries Adolph edited, ran a mission school in Budapest;[6] Johanna taught at the school and later married Charles Andrew Schönberger, co-founder of the Hebrew Christian Testimony to Israel;[7] and Maria Dorothea married the noted Hebrew Christian preacher Carl Schwartz.[8] In 1854 Adolph married Sarah Owen from Dublin. They had one daughter who died young; Sarah died four days before Adolph.[2]
References
- ^ Kovács, Ábrahám: The History of the Free Church of Scotland’s Mission to the Jews in Budapest and its impact on the Reformed Church of Hungary 1841-1914 Frankfurt am Main; New York; Berlin; Bern; Bruxelles; New York; Oxford; Wien: Peter Lang Verlag, 2006.
- ^ a b c d Carlyle, Edward Irving (1897). . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 50. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- ^ Carlyle, Rev. Gavin (1893). "Mighty in the Scriptures." A Memoir of Adolph Saphir, D.D. London: John F. Shaw. pp. 17–18. OCLC 681298716.
- ^ Larsen, David L. (1998). The Company of the Preachers: Volume 2. Kregel Publications. p. 570. ISBN 9780825494345. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
- ^ "Adolph Aaron Saphir". University of Glasgow. Retrieved 25 October 2015.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Saphir, Adolph, ed. (1852). Letters and Diaries of Philipp Saphir. Edinburgh: Johnstone and Hunter. OCLC 867543229.
- ^ Meyer, Rev. Louis, ed. (January 15, 1904). "Hebrew Christian Testimony to Israel". Jewish Missionary News from All Lands and All Societies. The Jewish Era. Vol. 13, no. 1. Chicago.
- ^ Licht, Agnes (June 30, 2017). "geboren worden in Amsterdam" [born in Amsterdam]. Maarten Maartens Lezen [Reading Maarten Maartens] (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 2020-05-05. Retrieved 2020-05-05. This article contains considerable biographical detail about Maria Dorothea Saphir, the first wife of Maarten Maartens's father Carl Schwartz.
External links
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- 1831 births
- 1891 deaths
- People from Pest, Hungary
- Converts to Calvinism from Judaism
- Alumni of the University of Aberdeen
- Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
- Protestant missionaries in England
- 19th-century Presbyterian ministers
- Presbyterian missionaries in Europe
- Hungarian Presbyterian missionaries
- Hungarian Jews