Halle Pastors, German Bettlers, and Lutheran Congregations in North America. Critical Edition und Scholarly Exploration of Letters and Journals, 1740-1820

即将出版的第3卷和第4卷是由dfg资助的项目“北美哈雷牧师，德国定居者和路德教会：1740-1820年信件和期刊的批判版和学术探索”的结果。这两卷都包含两位牧师的信件和其他官方文件：从1744年到1763年的120件（第3卷）和从1751年到1824年的137件（第4卷）。一些信件和文件的摘录，如果经过大量编辑，出现在当代传教士和教化文学中，但这些来源中的大多数以前从未发表过。到目前为止，还没有对该材料进行全面注释和评论的版本，提供了详细的索引，忠实地呈现了来源的原始措辞。这两卷书在几个方面对学术有特别的价值：这些问题补充了第一卷和第二卷中的旅行记录，对铁路和蒸汽船时代之前旅行者必须应付的条件和困难进行了令人印象深刻的描述。除了对国家和人民、自然和环境的观察之外，他们还揭示了派遣牧师到海外所需要的勤奋的计划、协调和后勤保障，以及传教士在前往美国的途中所面临的危险。许多信件可以让我们对作者的宗教信仰、内心深处的情感和个人思想、他们的自我认知、他们处理个人缺点的方式以及在信仰的确定性和宗教怀疑之间的斗争有有趣的见解。这些文件提供了多方面的见解，不仅是对教会问题，而且对十八世纪北美的日常生活，因为他们的条件与德国和欧洲是完全不同的。亨利·梅尔基奥·穆伦伯格（Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, 1711-1787）是哈雷在宾夕法尼亚州的第一位牧师，他毫不犹豫地直言不讳地批评他的同事，而他的同事们过去在指出其他哈雷教徒的错误或缺点时更为谨慎。Handschuch牧师和Helmuth牧师特别渴望报告他们的事工或促进学校教育和高等教育的成功。因此，这种叙述的摘录经常出现在《哈雷报告》中。熟悉穆伦伯格书信的读者会注意到，在第3卷和第4卷中，他的同行们广泛地回避了对这位哈雷教派领袖牧师性格的任何描写。尽管穆伦伯格在他们的著作中无所不在，但他的同事们大多不愿透露他们对他作为北美路德教会主要组织者的领导地位和成就的看法。

Volumes 3 and 4, which are to be published next, result from a DFG-funded project entitled "Halle Pastors, German Settlers, and Lutheran Congregations in North America: Critical Edition and Scholarly Exploration of Letters and Journals, 1740–1820". Both volumes contain letters and other official documents of two pastors each: 120 items dating from 1744 to 1763 (Vol. 3) and 137 items dating from 1751 to 1824 (Vol. 4). Some extracts from letters and documents, if heavily edited, appeared in contemporary missionary and edifying literature, but most of these sources have never been published before. Up to now, there does not exist any thoroughly annotated and commented edition of this material, providing detailed indices and faithfully rendering the original wording of the sources.The two volumes are of particular value to scholarship in several respects:1. Supplementing the travel accounts in volumes 1 and 2, these issues provide impressive descriptions of the conditions and difficulties travelers had to cope with prior to the age of railroads and steamboats. In addition to observations of country and people, of nature and the environment, they reveal the diligent planning, coordination and logistics needed for dispaching pastors overseas, and the dangers the preachers were exposed to on their way to America.2. Many letters permit intriguing insights into the writers’ religious beliefs, innermost feelings, and personal thoughts, into their self-perception, and into their way of handling personal shortcomings and a struggle between the certainties of faith and religious doubts.3. The documents allow multi-facetted insights not only into congregational issues but also into daily life in eighteenth-century North America, as they are contrasted with conditions in Germany and Europe being entirely different.4. Whereas Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711–1787), Halle’s first pastor in Pennsylvania, rarely hesitated to criticize his colleagues bluntly, his peers used to be more cautious in addressing other Hallensians’ mistakes or shortcomings. Pastors Handschuch and Helmuth were particularly eager to report successes of their ministry or of promoting schooling and higher education. Hence, extracts from such narratives frequently appeared in the Halle Reports.5. Readers familiar with Muhlenberg’s correspondence will notice in Volumes 3 and 4 that his peers widely spare any contouring of this leading Halle cleric’s personality. Though Muhlenberg is omnipresent in their writings, his colleagues largely abstain from revealing their views of his generalship and accomplishments as the chief organizer of churched Lutheranism in North America.