William Edgar and Robert D. Knudsen Collection (#036)

Collection

Identifier: MC-036

Staff Only

Content Description

Over the course of his career, Dr. William Edgar accumulated a large assortment of documentation from his colleague, Dr. Robert Knudsen. a professor of Christian apologetics and systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in the latter part of the twentieth century. These documents consist mostly of syllabi from the courses that Dr. Knudsen taught, as well as research papers and articles that Knudsen wrote. These syllabi were extraordinarily detailed, so much so that they are more like booklets than what are normally thought of as syllabi. This provides researchers with an extraordinary source of information on Knudsen’s teaching career.

Dr. Edgar also collected an assortment of his own work, including some administrative papers of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (some Sunday school lesson plans), papers produced by some of Edgar’s associates and scholars, as well as some festschrifts honoring Dr. Robert Knudsen.

Dates

Creation: 1966 - 2000
Creation: Majority of material found within 1990 - 2000

Creator

Edgar, William, 1944- (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Restrictions may apply at the discretion of library staff.

Conditions Governing Use

This collection is available to scholars and researchers who have registered with Westminster Theological Seminary Montgomery Library. There may be materials in this collection that are copyrighted. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine the copyright status of materials in the collection to comply with copyright law.

Robert Donald Knudsen

Robert Donald Knudsen was born in Oakland, California on July 20, 1924, as the eldest of three sons. Knudsen made his commitment to be a follower of Christ at the age of six, a commitment that shaped the rest of his life. Showing an abundance of academic capability, he began his undergraduate studies at the University of California—Berkeley. While there he joined the local OPC church which was pastored by the Reverend Robert K. Churchill, a WTS alumnus. After graduating from Berkeley, he enrolled at Westminster Theological Seminary. Apologetics was one of his favorite subjects which he learned from Dr. Cornelius Van Til. He graduated with a ThB and a ThM degree in May of 1947. After that he continued his studies at Union Theological Seminary (UTS) in New York, studying under the direction of Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr.

After his time at UTS, he traveled to the Netherlands to study at the Free University of Amsterdam. While there he met and married Ali Mulder on February 12, 1951. The two would have four children together—-all of them boys. One of his sons, Timothy Knudsen, predeceased Dr. Knudsen. Following his course work in the Netherlands, Knudsen returned to the United States to teach philosophy and other subjects at Rockmont College (RC) in Denver, Colorado. In addition to his duties as a member of the RC faculty, he formed an OPC home mission and occasionally preached there. In 1956, when Professor John Murray was on sabbatical from WTS, the WTS dean asked Knudsen if he was willing to fill in for Murray. Knudsen accepted the offer and taught at WTS during that academic year. Following that, he returned to the Netherlands and lived with Ali’s family. It was during that time that Knudsen completed his dissertation and successfully defended it on July 4, 1958. Having earned his doctoral degree, the Knudsens returned to the United States and joined the WTS faculty for the rest of his career, teaching apologetics and systematic theology. Dr. Knudsen retired from active teaching in 1995, and was granted emeritus status of in June of that year. It was in that year that the Westminster Theological Journal honored him with a festschrift in its Spring issue. Even in his retirement, Dr. Knudsen continued teaching. He also was involved in the Skilton House Ministries and studied ways to counteract the influence of Islam. In 1999, Knudsen and his wife traveled to Surinam to provide assistance to the OPC mission there. It was in early 2000 that Knudsen suffered a stroke, and died five weeks later.