Franz Eugen Schlachter

Who was Franz Eugen Schlachter?

Franz Eugen Schlachter was a revivalist preacher, classical scholar and the translator of the Schlachter Bible.

He was the son of Joseph Franz Schlachter, a business man from Mühlhausen/Alsace in France. At the time of his confirmation he visited the assembly of Robert Persall Smith, the leader of the Holiness Movement, in Basel. At the same time he experienced conversion to Jesus Christ. As his parents lacked money he left school to begin vocational training for a merchant. He continued to study Ancient Greek and Hebrew during this time.

From 1878-1882 he studied at a seminary in Basel. In 1882 he began his service as a preacher of the Evangelische Gesellschaft of the Bern canton. In 1884 he was baptised by a preacher from the Freie Evangelische Gemeinde in Thun named Konrad Werndli. In the same year he travelled to Great Britain, to visit the assemblies of Charles Haddon Spurgeon and Dwight Lyman Moody.

He wrote many theological and biographical books about, among others, Herodes I, Resli, a little boy, and Dwight Lyman Moody. In 1888 he published a short pamphlet named "Brosamen von des Herrn Tisch". In the first part be wrote about the Bible and belief in Jesus Christ.