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Dr. Charles Lee Feinberg served as dean of the Talbot School of Theology from 1952-1970, and as the professor of Semitics and Old Testament. Feinberg Hall is named for him.

Early Life, Conversion, Education, and Marriage

Feinberg was born June 12, 1909 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to orthodox Jewish parents of Western European and Polish extraction. When Charles was twelve years old, a neighbor named Mrs. Pierson began tactfully witnessing to the Feinberg family, and for the next eight years prayed five times a day for the "boy next door studying to be a Rabbi."

Feinberg entered the University of Pittsburgh at age 17, majoring in history and minoring in English, French, German, and Psychology in three years. Upon graduation, he began making preparations to become a rabbi, but Mrs. Pierson convinced him to talk with a Hebrew Christian missionary first. After extensive conversations, Feinberg prayed, "O God, if Jesus is the Messiah, if he is the sacrifice for sin, if he is my Saviour, as this Missionary has indicated, if you will give me this conviction, I will believe on him now."

Feinberg was converted on the spot in October 1930, and two weeks later was moving to Florida to teach in a Bible College. Eager for better academic training, at the advice of Rev. J. Hoffman Cohen of the American Board of Missions to the Jews in New York City, Feinberg enrolled in Lewis Sperry Chafer's Evangelical Theological College in Dallas, Texas (now Dallas Theological Seminary). Feinberg enrolled in the Fall of 1931, and graduated in the Spring of 1934 with two degrees: a Th.B. and a Th.M. But he had also completed all the work required for the Th.D. degree, and the school agreed to grant him that doctorate if he would spend one more year in residence and write a dissertation. During that year he also taught Church History courses, and received the degree, summa cum laude, in May of 1935.

In 1932 Feinberg had met Anne, a Hebrew Christian student at the Moody Bible Institute and a worker with the Peniel Mission (Presbyterian mission to the Jews in Chicago) where she was converted. Anne's family had come to America from a small town in Russia in 1920, having suffered greatly under poverty and the pogroms. Charles and Anne got engaged soon, but did not marry until Feinberg completed his seminary work. The wedding took place just after graduation in Lewis Sperry Chafer's home, with evangelical luminaries such as Harry Ironside and Everett Harrison in attendance, in academic regalia.

Early Teaching Career

In 1935 a full-time position in Old Testament Hebrew opened up as a result of faculty shuffling when Dr. Thiessen moved to Wheaton College. Feinberg taught Hebrew in the seminary of the Evangelical Theological College until 1945, and also earned two more degrees during that time: An M.A. in history from Southern Methodist University in 1943, and a PhD in Semitic Languages from Johns Hopkins in 1945, under William F. Albright.

Biola and Talbot Career

Feinberg had been a speaker at the 1946 Torrey Memorial Bible Conference, and was invited back to the 1948 conference, where Louis Talbot and J. Vernon McGee invited him to join the Biola College faculty and to minister in the Jewish Department of the Church of the Open Door under Daniel Rose (the Dean, Sam Sutherland, was in Mexico at the time). With an eye on the possibility of developing a graduate school of theology at Biola, Feinberg become Professor of Old Testament and bible Exposition in 1948.

Feinberg taught in Bible Conferences in the United States, Canada, Palestine, and Japan. He traveled to Palestine on annual Talbot trips annually after 1959, and taught in South Africa and Rhodesia.

At the same time stern, disciplined and caring, Dr. Feinberg expected as much faithfulness to scripture in his students’ personal conduct as he did on his Biblical Hebrew tests.

Colleagues recall Feinberg’s withering stare, which he used strategically during senior sermons to signal an exegetical misstep. But they also remember his heart for people and knack for remembering the names and prayer concerns of the faculty members’ families.

The legendary Feinberg served as dean of the seminary until 1970. It was long enough to see significant changes in the size, demographics, and texture of the student body. By the time the college constructed the stately Calvary Chapel, administrators didn’t have to look far for a namesake of the Biblical studies building below – hence, Feinberg Hall.

Publications

  • Premillenialism or Amillennialism? (Zondervan, 1936)
  • Hosea: God's Love for Israel (1947)
  • Joel, The Day of the Lord; Amos, The Righteousness of God (1948)
  • God Remembers: A Study of the Book of Zechariah (1950)
  • Habakkuk, Problems of Faith; Zephaniah, The Day of the Lord; Haggai, Rebuilding the Temple; Malachi, Formal Worship (1951)
  • Jonah, God's Love for All Nations; Micah, Wrath upon Samaria and Jerusalem; Nahum, Judgement on Ninevah (1951)
  • Zechariah: Israel's Comfort and Glory (1952)
  • The Sabbath and the Lord's Day (1952)
  • Israel in the Last Days: The Olivet Discourse (1953)
  • Israel in the Spotlight (1956)
  • Is the Virgin Birth in the Old Testament? (1967)
  • The Prophecy of Ezekiel: Glory of the Lord (1969)
  • Israel at the Center of History and Revelation (1980)
  • Daniel, the Man and his Visions (1981)
  • Jeremiah, A Commentary (1982)
  • Daniel, the Kingdom of the Lord (1981)
  • A Commentary on Revelation: The Grand Finale (1985)
  • Festschrift edited by his sons:Tradition and testament : essays in honor of Charles Lee Feinberg edited by John S. Feinberg and Paul D. Feinberg (Moody Bible Institute, 1981)

Sources

The Henry Manuscript, chapter on The Deans.

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