Basil Atkinson

Dr. Basil Ferris Campbell Atkinson (1895–1971) was the under-librarian of the University of Cambridge and Keeper of Manuscripts^[1] from 1925 to 1960, and a writer on theology. He was born in Tonbridge, Kent and attended Tonbridge School before, in 1919,^[2] entering Magdalene College, Cambridge where he read for a Classics degree and took a double first.^[3] He went on to obtain a Ph.D. in 1926.^[3] He was actively involved with the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union for many years and in the formation of the Inter Varsity Fellowship (now the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship), and also as a writer of academic literature, and Christian books and Bible commentaries. He remained in Cambridge until his death.

Activities in the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union

Atkinson had considered work on the mission field but concluded that he should stay in Cambridge where he became a valued adviser of Christian Union,^[4] where for some years in the 1930s he was the only member of the university staff who gave the Union his full support^[5] and his house was used for garden parties on Sunday afternoons.^[6]

Writings

Linguistics

Ancient Ilyrian (1931); The Greek Language (1932); A Theology of Prepositions as an application of linguistics to Theology 1945.

Christian

Is the Bible True? (1934); Valiant in Fight (a title taken from Hebrews.11. 34), an overview of Church history from an evangelical perspective, (1937); The War with Satan, an historicist (as opposed to a futurist or preterist) interpretation of The Book of Revelation (1940) - in which he adopts the Thomas Brightman view of the seven churches, the synchronicity principle of Joseph Meade and several of the ideas of Isaac Newton; The Christian's use of The Old Testament (1952), and The Times of the Gentiles a commentary on the Book of Daniel (1968), intended to complement The War with Satan. Atkinson also wrote a series of commentaries on the Books of Genesis to Numbers from 1952 to 1962. His final work, published privately, is his Life and Immortality in which he uses all his rhetorical skill to propose the doctrine of conditional immortality. He formats his commentaries with reference to chapter and verse in the left margins and instructs his readers to refer to the appropriate Bible Text as they study.

Atkinson was most notable for his advocacy of soul sleep and conditional immortality.^[7] within the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU) and the Inter Varsity Fellowship in the 1920s where he influenced, among others, John W. Wenham.^[8]

Literary style

Atkinson was keen to cover a broad scope, especially historical, in his subjects and to avoid specialist terminology. In the foreword to 'The Greek Language", for example, he states it is "a summary history of the whole language from its origins to the present day" and of the difficulty of "the tendency of the linguistic chapters to become too technical and those upon literature too elementary". Nevertheless, as a Latin scholar he is unafraid of giving even whole verbatim quotations from the original sources in that language in his evangelical works intended for wider readership. In the latter works, while he writes in plain language and draws on a wide range of facts, his style often becomes highly rhetorical in criticism of The Roman Catholic Church (particularly the Inquisition) and Liberal Christianity. In many ways he was the pioneer of popular evangelical literature written in a plain style.^[9]^[10]

References

^ Johnson, Douglas. Contending for the Faith IVP (1979) p. 95 n.1
^ Johnson, Douglas. Contending for the Faith IVP (1979) p. 89
^ ^a ^b Pollock, J.C. A Cambridge Movement John Murray, London (1953) p.220
^ Pollock, J.C. A Cambridge Movement John Murray, London (1953) p.220
^ Pollock, J.C. A Cambridge Movement John Murray, London (1953) p.243
^ Pollock, J.C. A Cambridge Movement John Murray, London (1953) p.249
^ Basil F. C. Atkinson, Life and Immortality: an Examination of the Nature and Meaning of Life and Death as They Are Revealed in the Scriptures Taunton, England
^ Pibworth: "It is in this book that Wenham says "I had learnt the doctrine from Basil Atkinson (as recounted in Chapter 8) [of his autobiography, Facing Hell] in about 1934". The role of Basil Atkinson, conditional immortality and other evangelicals is discussed extensively in Wenham's autobiography. Wenham states that J. Stafford Wright, Robert Clark and Norman Anderson and Michael Green also shared conditional immortality views. It is worth noting that they also all studied at Cambridge."
^ Alan Pibworth, "Basil Atkinson" webpage, 10/03/01
^ Obituary in Grace Magazine