James Bannerman

Who was James Bannerman?

James Bannerman, D.D., was a Scottish theologian.

Bannerman was the son of Reverend James Patrick Bannerman, minister of Cargill, Perthshire. He was born at the manse of Cargill, 9 April 1807, and after a distinguished career at the university of Edinburgh, especially in the classes of Sir John Leslie and Professor Wilson, became minister of Ormiston, in Midlothian, in 1833, left the Established Church for the Free church in 1843, and in 1849 was appointed professor of apologetics and pastoral theology in the New College, Edinburgh, which office he held till his death, 27 March 1868.

In 1850 he received the degree of D.D. from Princeton College, New Jersey. He took a leading part in various public movements, especially in that which led in 1843 to the separation of the free church from the state, and subsequently in the negotiations for union between the nonconformist presbyterian churches of England and Scotland. His chief publications were: 1. ‘Letter to the Marquis of Tweeddale on the Church Question,’ 1840. 2. ‘The Prevalent Forms of Unbelief,’ 1849. 3. ‘Apologetical Theology,’ 1851. 4. ‘Inspiration: the Infallible Truth and Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures,’ 1865. 5.