Bruno Bauer (; 6 September 180913 April 1882) was a German philosopher and theologian. As a student of G. W. F. Hegel, Bauer was a radical Rationalist in philosophy, politics and Biblical criticism. Bauer investigated the sources of the New Testament and, beginning with Hegel's Hellenophile orientation, concluded that early Christianity owed more to ancient Greek philosophy (Stoicism) than to Judaism.
Bruno Bauer is also known for his association and sharp break with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and for his later association with Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche. Starting in 1840, he began a series of works arguing that Jesus of Nazareth was a 2nd-century fusion of Jewish, Greek, and Roman theology.
Biography
Bauer was born on 6 September 1809 at Eisenberg in Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. In 1815, Bauer's father got a job as a painter in a porcelain factory in Charlottenburg and the family moved to Berlin. From 1828 to 1834 Bauer studied at the University of Berlin under Hegel, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Heinrich Gustav Hotho, and Phillip Marheineke. While at the university, Bauer's 1829 essay on Immanuel Kant's aesthetics won the Prussian royal prize in philosophy on Hegel's recommendation.
He became associated with the "Right Hegelians'" under Marheineke, who engaged Bauer years later to edit the second edition of Hegel's "Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion" (1818-1832).
From 1834 to 1839 Bauer taught theological and biblical texts in Berlin. In 1838 he published his (Critical Exhibition of the Religion of the Old Testament) in two volumes.
However, in 1839 he was transferred to the University of Bonn after publishing an attack on his former teacher Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg.
Consistent with his Hegelian Rationalism, Bauer continued in 1840 with, (Critique of the Evangelical History of John). In 1841 Bauer continued his Rationalist theme with, (Critique of the Evangelical History of the Synoptics).
From 1839 to 1841, Bauer was a teacher, mentor and close friend of Karl Marx, but in 1841 they came to a break. Marx, with Friedrich Engels, had formulated a socialist and communistic program that Bruno Bauer firmly rejected. Marx and Engels in turn expressed their break with Bauer in two books: The Holy Family (1845) and The German Ideology (1846).
He was dismissed from the University of Bonn in 1842 due to his unorthodox writings on the New Testament. At no time in his writing was Bauer ever an orthodox Christian.
He was called a "Right Hegelian" by his contemporary David Strauss. (cf. David Strauss, In Defense of My 'Life of Jesus' Against the Hegelians, 1838). Also, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels accused Bauer of being a right-wing fanatic in their book The Holy Family: Against Bruno Bauer and Co. (1845), and in The German Ideology (1846). Further, several scholars (e.g., Dr. Lawrence Stepelevich) still maintain that Bauer's book, Trumpet of the Last Judgment Against Hegel the Atheist and Antichrist (1841), was a genuinely right-wing production.
Despite this, Bruno Bauer was much later accused of being a "Left Hegelian" because of his association, or rather his early leadership, of the Young Hegelians. The labels of 'Left' and 'Right' were only placed on Bruno Bauer by others; never by himself.
The Prussian Minister of Education, Altenstein, sent Bauer to the University of Bonn, to protect his Rationalist Theology from the critique of the Berlin orthodox, as well as to win over Bonn University to Hegelianism. Bauer, however, created many enemies at pietist-dominated Bonn University, where he openly taught Rationalism in his new position as professor of theology. Bauer attested in letters during this time that he tried to provoke a scandal, to force the government either to give complete freedom of research and teaching to its university professors or to openly express its anti-enlightenment position by removing him from his post.
The pro-Hegelian minister Altenstein died in 1840 and was replaced by the anti-Hegelian Eichhorn. The government officials asked for advice from the theology departments of its universities. Except for the Hegelian Marheineke, most said that a professor of Protestant theology should not be allowed to teach "atheism" to his student priests. As Bauer was unwilling to compromise his Rationalism, the Prussian government in 1842 revoked his teaching license. After the setbacks of the revolutions of 1848, Bauer left the city. He lived an ascetic and stoic life in the countryside of Rixdorf near Berlin.