Born: Au­gust 25, 1791, Cor­bach, Wal­deck, Ger­ma­ny.

Died: No­vem­ber 28, 1860, Bonn, Ger­ma­ny.

Educated at the Un­i­ver­si­ties of Mar­burg and Gött­ing­en, Bun­sen began his ca­reer as an as­sist­ant mas­ter in the Gym­na­si­um at Göt­ting­en, but soon en­tered a life of schol­ar­ship and di­plo­ma­cy. He served as the Pruss­ian min­is­ter in Rome (1823-38) and Berne (1838-41), and am­bass­a­dor to Eng­land (1841-54). His works in­clude:

• Description of Rome, 1819
• Versuch eines all­ge­mein­en evan­gel­isch­en Ge­sang- und Ge­bet­buchs, 1833. This mass­ive work, con­tain­ing 934 hymns and 350 pray­ers, was re­pub­lished as All­ge­mein­es Evan­gel­isch­es Ge­sang-und-Ge­bet-buch zum Kirch­en-und-Haus­ge­brauch: In völl­ig neu­er Be­ar­bei­tung von Al­bert Fisch­er (Go­tha: F A. Per­thes, 1881)
• Egypt­s Place in the World­s His­to­ry, 1848
• Hippolytus and His Age, 1852
• Outlines of a Phil­o­so­phy of Un­i­vers­al His­to­ry, 1854
• Signs of the Times, 1855
• God in His­to­ry, 1857-8
• Bibel-Werk (Cri­ti­cal Text of the Bi­ble), with com­ment­ar­ies (un­fin­ish­ed)