Bush, George

BUSH, GEORGE: American Swedenborgian; b. at Norwich, Vt., June 12, 1796; d. at Rochester, N. Y., Sept. 19, 1859. He was graduated at Dartmouth, 1818; studied at Princeton Theological Seminary, 1820–22; was tutor in Princeton College, 1822–23; went to Indiana for the Home Missionary Society in 1824 and was pastor of a Presbyterian church at Indianapolis 1825–28; professor of Hebrew and Oriental literature in the University of the City of New York 1831–47; instructor of sacred literature in Union Theological Seminary in the same city 1836–37. In 1845 he connected himself with the Swedenborgians and was preacher of the New Church Society in New York 1848–52, in Brooklyn 1854–59. He was an active defender of the tenets of his faith with both pen and voice, and edited the New Church Repository and Monthly Review 1848–55. His writings on other subjects include: Life of Mohammed (New York, 1832); A Treatise on the Millennium (1832); A Grammar of the Hebrew Language (1835); Notes Critical and Practical on the Old Testament (Genesis-Judges, 8 vols., 1840 sqq.); Anastasis (1845), against the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. He was justly esteemed as a Hebrew scholar.

Bibliography: Memoirs and Reminiscenses of George Bush, a collection of contributions from friends, edited by Woodbury M. Fernald, Boston, 1860.