Kemper Fullerton Papers

Kemper Fullerton, beloved teacher and authority on the Hebrew prophets, occupied the Finney Professorship of Old Testament Language and Literature at Oberlin's Graduate School of Theology from 1904 to 1934. He was born in Cincinnati on November 29, 1865, to Rev. Thomas A. Fullerton (1835-1901), a Presbyterian minister, and Salina "Lina" Hall. He spent his boyhood in Erie, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1884 from the College Preparatory Department of Erie Academy. He went on to Princeton University where he received his B.A. in 1888, returning in 1894 for his M.A.

After three years of post-graduate work at Union Theological Seminary (1888-91), Fullerton won a Union fellowship for two years of theological study at the University of Berlin. There, he studied with the great Protestant thinker, Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930), absorbing the hermeneutics of German liberal theology. Fullerton regarded this experience as the greatest intellectual stimulus of his life. He wrestled for many years with the conflict Berlin engendered in him. On the one hand was the faith of his fathers; on the other, the data of biblical higher criticism to which he contributed with his own linguistic studies of the Hebrew texts.

Upon returning to this country in 1893, Fullerton became Instructor in Hebrew at Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati. After eleven years at Lane, he came in 1904 to Oberlin Theological Seminary (as the Graduate School of Theology was then called) to head the department of Old Testament Language and Literature. In 1905, he married Kate Spencer (1866-1951) of Erie, Pennsylvania (1867-1951). They adopted two children, Spencer (1908-1974) and Katherine P. (1916-1987).

As a teacher, Kemper Fullerton had no peer. He was universally adored by his students, who found any subject he treated, including Hebrew grammar, to be enriched by his wit, intelligence, and elegance of expression. He brought the biblical lands to life in his lectures on the history of Israel by showing lantern slides, photographs, and maps gathered during his travels and by discussing the finds of archaeologists which were transforming biblical studies. His liberal outlook won him the epithet, "genial iconoclast."

Fullerton's scholarship centered on Old Testament prophecy. He was a gifted exegete and translator of Job, Jonah, Isaiah, and the Psalms. His first book, Notes on Hebrew Grammar, appeared in 1898. In 1919, he completed his most widely known study, Prophecy and Authority, in which he argued for a liberal understanding of prophecy as the fulfillment of prophetic ideals rather than the fulfillment of prophetic predictions. His other books include Luther's Doctrine and Criticism of Scripture [1906], Studies in the Psalter 1911, and The Truth About the Bible [1923], which he co-authored with Edward I. Bosworth and others. His numerous technical studies appeared in such periodicals as the Harvard Theological Review, The Journal of Religion, The Journal of Biblical Literature, and Semitic Languages and Literature. In 1938, Yale brought out an anthology of his informal chapel talks, Essays and Sketches: Oberlin 1904-34. Many consider this volume quintessential Fullerton: poetic, vivid with memory and imagination, graciously didactic.

In 1927, the honorary degree of Doctor of Theology was conferred on Fullerton by the University of Tubingen on the occasion of its 450th anniversary. He received honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees from Princeton in 1932 and from Oberlin in 1936. In 1931, Fullerton became the only faculty member in Oberlin's history to be chosen as Commencement speaker. Having taught for several years beyond his sixty-fifth year, Fullerton retired in 1934. He died in Oberlin at age 75 on March 23, 1941.

Note written by Valerie S. Komor.