Edgar Johnson Goodspeed (1871–1962) was an American liberal theologian and scholar of Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 and the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

. He taught for many years at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

, whose collection of New Testament manuscript

Manuscript

A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

s he enriched by his searches. The University's collection is now named in his honor.

He is widely remembered for his translations of the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

: The New Testament: an American Translation (1923), and (with J. M. Powis-Smith) "The Bible, An American Translation

An American Translation

The Bible, An American Translation consists of The Old Testament translated by a group of scholars under the editorship of J.M. Powis Smith, and The New Testament translated by Edgar J...

" (1935), the "Goodspeed Bible". He is also remembered for his translation of the Apocrypha, and that translation was included in The Complete Bible, An American Translation (1939)

Edgar J. Goodspeed was born in Quincy, Illinois

Quincy, Illinois

Quincy, known as Illinois' "Gem City," is a river city along the Mississippi River and the county seat of Adams County. As of the 2010 census the city held a population of 40,633. The city anchors its own micropolitan area and is the economic and regional hub of West-central Illinois, catering a...

. He graduated from Denison University

Denison University

Denison University is private, coeducational, and residential college of liberal arts and sciences founded in 1831. It is located in Granville, Ohio, United States, approximately 30 miles east of Columbus, the state capital...

 (where he also received a doctorate in Divinity

Doctor of Divinity

Doctor of Divinity is an advanced academic degree in divinity. Historically, it identified one who had been licensed by a university to teach Christian theology or related religious subjects....

, 1928) and the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 (Ph.D. 1898).

Aside from his scholarly work, he wrote many non-dogmatic introductions to biblical literature for the lay reader:

• The Story of the Bible and
• The Story of the Apocrypha,
• The Story of the Old Testament, 1934
• How to Read the Bible 1946
• The Twelve, The Story of Christ's Apostles
• Strange New Gospels, 1931
• How Came the Bible?, Abingdon–Cokesbury Press, c1940.
• A History of Early Christian Literature, University of Chicago Press
  University of Chicago Press
  The University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
  
  , 1942
• Problems of New Testament Translation, 1945
• The Life of Jesus for Young People
• The Apostolic Fathers: An American Translation, Harper & Brothers
  Harper (publisher)
  Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins.-History:James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishing business J. & J. Harper in 1817. Their two brothers, Joseph Wesley Harper and Fletcher Harper, joined them...
  
   1950
• Modern Apocrypha, The Beacon Press, 1956
• The Short Bible, Edited by Edgar J. Goodspeed and J.M.Powis Smith, University of Chicago Press
  University of Chicago Press
  The University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
  
  , 1933

Edgar J. Goodspeed died in 1962 and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California

Glendale, California

Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...

.

External links

• Goodspeed, "The translators to the Reader": Goodspeed's thesis on the Preface to the King James Version, 1611
• goodspeed and the goodspeed collection of mss at Chicago