Allen Wikgren

Who is Allen Wikgren?

Allen Paul Wikgren was an American New Testament scholar at the University of Chicago. His work centred on the text of the New Testament and New Testament manuscripts, but also included Hellenistic and biblical Greek and early Jewish literature, as well as the English Bible.

Wikgren earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1928, his Master of Arts degree in 1929 and his Ph.D. in 1932, all from the University of Chicago. His doctoral dissertation was entitled "A Comparative Study of the Theodotionic and Septuagint Versions of Daniel". An ordained minister in the mainline Northern Baptist Convention, Wikgren then served as a minister at First Baptist Church in Belleville, Kansas and as a professor of New Testament literature at Kansas City Baptist Theological Seminary and of biblical literature and classics at Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kansas before returning to Chicago to join the University of Chicago Divinity School as the J. M. Powis Smith Instructor in 1940. At Chicago, Wikgren was a member of the Department of New Testament and Early Christian Literature in the university's Division of the Humanities, a department which he would later serve as chair.