Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten
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Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten (/ˈbaʊmɡɑːrtən/; German: [ˈbaʊmˌgaʁtn̩]; 14 March 1706 – 4 July 1757) was a German Lutheran theologian.
He was the brother of the philosopher Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714–1762).
Baumgarten was born in Wolmirstedt, in the Duchy of Magdeburg.
He studied theology at the University of Halle, and in 1728, the 22-year-old Baumgarten, a Hallensian Pietist and bibliophile, was appointed as minister of the Marktkirche Unser Lieben Frauen (Market Church of Our Dear Lady). In 1730, he became an extraordinary professor at Halle, where in 1734 he was appointed a full professor of theology. In 1748, he was named a university rector. At the end of his life, he translated encyclopedic articles and biographies from English into German.[1]
Baumgarten was a follower of the philosophical teachings of Christian Wolff, and is regarded as a transitional theologian from the Pietism of Philipp Jakob Spener and August Hermann Francke to that of modern rationalism. He was a prodigious writer and published works on exegesis, hermeneutics, dogmatics and history. He was the editor of the first sixteen volumes of the Allgemeine Welthistorie (General World History), which, after his death, was continued by his assistant Johann Salomo Semler.
Baumgarten died in Halle, Magdeburg.
