Walter Balfour
Walter Balfour (1776-1852) was a Scottish-born minister and writer who settled in Massachusetts and became one of early American Universalism's foremost biblical controversialists. His An Inquiry into the Scriptural Import of the Words Sheol, Hades, Tartarus, and Gehenna (Charlestown, 1824) argued that none of the biblical terms translated "hell" denotes a place of endless punishment, and it became a standard work of Universalist argument. He followed it with numerous printed replies to orthodox critics, including a series of letters addressed to the Andover biblical scholar Moses Stuart.
In the collection (3 works)
An Inquiry into the Scriptural Import of the Words Sheol, Hades, Tartarus, and Gehenna (1824)
One of the most consequential works of biblical criticism the movement produced. Balfour, a Scottish-born minister trained in orthodoxy, examines every biblical occurrence of the four words translated 'hell' and argues that none of them denotes a place of endless punishment — sheol and hades meaning the grave or the unseen state, gehenna the valley outside Jerusalem and the judgment that fell on Israel. The book unsettled ministers across New England, drew a famous reply from Moses Stuart of Andover, and converted many readers to Universalism.
(Note: this summary was automatically generated and may be inaccurate.)
Letters to Rev. Moses Stuart (1833) with Moses Stuart
The great exegetical duel of the controversy: Moses Stuart of Andover, the country's foremost biblical scholar, had answered Balfour's Inquiry with his Exegetical Essays; these letters are Balfour's reply, contesting Stuart's Hebrew and Greek point by point. That Andover's champion had to answer a self-taught Charlestown Universalist at all was itself a victory the denomination savored.
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A Letter to Rev. Bernard Whitman on the Term Gehenna (1834) with Bernard Whitman
A focused skirmish in Balfour's long campaign over the vocabulary of hell: here the opponent is Bernard Whitman, a liberal Unitarian who still defended gehenna as future punishment. The exchange shows the Universalist argument pressing not only against orthodoxy but against the halfway positions of fellow liberals.
(Note: this summary was automatically generated and may be inaccurate.)