Herman Ridderbos (1909-2007)

Rev. Dr. Herman Ridderbos, the influential NT scholar and biblical theologian, recently died. Details about both his life and his death have been difficult to locate, but here's the basic information about the work and influence of this faithful servant of the Lord:

Herman Nicolaas Ridderbos was born in 1900 [sic? I think it was actually 1909]. His father, Jan Ridderbos, was an ordained minister in the Reformed Church of the Netherlands, a biblical commentator, and professor of Old Testament at the Theological School of the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands in Kampen. Herman Ridderbos completed his undergraduate studies there, and did his post-graduate work at the Free University of Amsterdam under F. W. Grosheide, qualifying for his doctorate in 1936. In 1943, after serving as a pastor for eight years, Ridderbos was appointed to the post of Professor of New Testament Studies at that same school, succeeding Dr. Sidney Greidanus who had been one of his professors. He served there for over forty years.

H. N. Ridderbos's brother N. H. Ridderbos became Professor of Old Testament at the Free University of Amsterdam in the early fifties. The Ridderbos family name, needless to say, has become virtually synonymous with eminent Biblical scholarship. Ridderbos was raised in the church. From his father, a staunch churchman and prominent spokesman in the Dutch controversy of the 30s and 40s, Ridderbos learned first hand both the dangers which a psychologizing homiletic posed to the church of God and the imperative to ground all things in the objective realities revealed in Scripture. Ridderbos became a vocal churchman in his own right, arguing effectively in sermons, lectures, treatises, and the ecclesiastical courts, for a redemptive historical approach and understanding of Scripture. Ridderbos's antagonism against dilusive subjectivism is evident in all of his works. A prolific New Testament commentator and redemptive historical theologian par excellence, Ridderbos has produced some of the most helpful insights on redemptive history, corporate personality, the Kingdom of God and eschatology. His seminal work on the theology of Paul is widely and highly acclaimed, and is considered a definitive exposition of by many, both in the Reformed church and by the scholarly community at large.