In memoriam: Allen Wikgren

An ordained minister of the American Baptist Convention, Wikgren was a minister at First Baptist Church in Belleville, Kan., and a professor at Central Baptist Theological Seminary and Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kan., before joining the Chicago faculty as the J.M. Powis Smith Instructor in the Divinity School in 1940.

An expert on New Testament languages and literature, Wikgren was the author of The Ancestry of Our English Bible (1949), co-editor of New Testament Manuscript Studies (1950) and editor of Early Christian Origins (1961), as well as the author or editor of numerous other texts. He had been a member of the committee for a revised Standard Version of the Bible since 1952.

He is survived by his two sons and their wives, Donald and Ellen Wikgren of Green Bay, Wis., and Burton and Martha Wikgren of Belleville, Ill.; a brother, Arthur, of Denver; five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. His wife, Dora, died in 1988.

Memorial donations may be made to the American Bible Society or the Optimist International Foundation. A graveside memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, June 20, at Swedish Brantford Cemetery in Clyde, Kan.