Abraham Dirk Loman was a Dutch theologian. He was a professor from 1856 till 1893. In his later period he belonged to the Dutch radical critics

Radical Criticism

Radical Criticism is a movement around the late 19th century that, typically, denied authentic authorship of the Pauline epistles. This went beyond the higher criticism of the Tübingen school which held that a core of at least four epistles had been written by Paul of Tarsus in the 1st...

.

Life

Loman was the son of a minister in the Dutch Lutheran church

Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands was a denomination in the Netherlands which under that name existed from 1818 to 2004...

. He started studying theology in 1840 and became a minister in 1846. In 1856 he became a professor at the Lutheran seminary

Seminary

A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...

 in Amsterdam. Loman gradually lost his eyesight in the beginning of the 1870's, but continued working. From 1877 he also was a theology professor at the University of Amsterdam until his retirement in 1893.

Work

Loman introduced modern theology in the Dutch Lutheran Church. He taught almost all disciplines of theology, but concentrated after 1867 on the New Testament and early Christian literature. He wrote a book about the Muratorian fragment

Muratorian fragment

The Muratorian fragment is a copy of perhaps the oldest known list of the books of the New Testament. The fragment, consisting of 85 lines, is a 7th-century Latin manuscript bound in an eighth or 7th century codex that came from the library of Columban's monastery at Bobbio; it contains internal...

, but published mostly in journals. His opinions mostly agreed with the Tübingen school. When his colleague Allard Pierson

Allard Pierson

Allard Pierson was a Dutch theologian, historian, and art historian. He was a leading proponent of radical criticism in the Netherlands.-Life:Pierson's father was a merchant in Amsterdam, his mother an author of pietist works...

 in 1878 denied the authenticity of Galatians

Epistle to the Galatians

The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians, often shortened to Galatians, is the ninth book of the New Testament. It is a letter from Paul of Tarsus to a number of Early Christian communities in the Roman province of Galatia in central Anatolia...

, Loman wrote a fierce condemnation.

But after 1880 his views changed. He caused great consternation by a public lecture on 13 December 1881 in the building of the Vrije Gemeente

Paradiso (Amsterdam)

Paradiso is an iconic rock music venue and cultural center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.-History:It is housed in a converted former church building that dates from the nineteenth century and that was used until 1965 as the meeting hall for a liberal Dutch religious group known as the "Vrije...

 where he stated that Jesus is not a figure of history and that all we know about him is second-century fiction. In his Quaestiones Paulinae (1882, 1883, 1886) he abandoned Pauline authorship of Galatians. His arguments were that the Pauline epistles are not quoted by Justin Martyr

Justin Martyr

Justin Martyr, also known as just Saint Justin , was an early Christian apologist. Most of his works are lost, but two apologies and a dialogue survive. He is considered a saint by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church....

 and that the first datable references are by Marcion.