Gerard Bolland

Gerardus Johannes Petrus Josephus Bolland was a Dutch autodidact, linguist, philosopher, biblical scholar and lecturer, known as an excellent orator who drew large audiences to public lectures across the Netherlands and Belgium. He became an expert in German idealism, especially the work of Eduard von Hartmann and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and researched the formation of Christianity from 1891 onward. Around 1900 he brought about a revival of Hegelianism in the Netherlands by arranging a new edition of Hegel work and stimulating renewed interest in philosophy there, though his idiosyncratic use of the Dutch language drew sharp criticism from other scholars.