J. Rendel Harris
Encyclopedia
James Rendel Harris was an English
biblical scholar and curator of manuscripts, who was instrumental in bringing back to light many Syriac Scriptures and other early documents. His contacts at the Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai
enabled twin sisters Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson to discover there the Sinaitic Palimpsest, the oldest Syriac New Testament document in existence. He subsequently accompanied them on a second trip, with Robert Bensly and Francis Crawford Burkitt
, to decipher the palimpsest
. He himself discovered there other manuscripts (073
, 0118
, 0119, 0137, a Syriac text of the Apology of Aristides
etc.,). Harris's Biblical Fragments from Mount Sinai appeared in 1890.
, where he was a fellow in mathematics
from 1875 to 1878, in 1892, and from 1902 to 1904. Harris spent as much time in the Near East as he could. During the same time, he served as professor of New Testament
Greek
at Johns Hopkins University
, Baltimore
, USA (1882–85) and at Haverford College
(1882–92). In 1889 and 1890, while on leave from Haverford, he purchased 47 rolls and codices
written in Hebrew
, Latin
, Arabic
, Syriac
, Armenian
and Ethiopic
. He said that these texts, which discussed biblical and linguistic topics and some of which were as old as the 13th century, were "all acquired by the lawful, though sometimes tedious, processes of Oriental commerce". Upon his return, he donated them to Haverford. They are held by the college library's Quaker Collection. He taught theology at Leiden University
(1903–04). After this, he was appointed director of studies at the Society of Friends' Woodbrooke College, near Birmingham
.
Harris represented two prestigious libraries during his lifetime: Johns Hopkins, and John Rylands Library
, Manchester
, where he became the curator of manuscripts. Most of his publications dealt with biblical and patristic history; he was an extremely prolific writer. He examined the Latin text of the Codex Sangallensis 48.
Included among the topics on which he wrote are: the Apology of Aristides
(1891), the Didache
, Philo
, the Diatessaron
, the Christian Apologists, Acts of Perpetua, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon
(1906), the Gospel of Peter
, and other Western and Syriac texts, and numerous works on biblical manuscripts.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
biblical scholar and curator of manuscripts, who was instrumental in bringing back to light many Syriac Scriptures and other early documents. His contacts at the Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai , also known as Mount Horeb, Mount Musa, Gabal Musa , Jabal Musa meaning "Moses' Mountain", is a mountain near Saint Catherine in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. A mountain called Mount Sinai is mentioned many times in the Book of Exodus in the Torah and the Bible as well as the Quran...
enabled twin sisters Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson to discover there the Sinaitic Palimpsest, the oldest Syriac New Testament document in existence. He subsequently accompanied them on a second trip, with Robert Bensly and Francis Crawford Burkitt
Francis Crawford Burkitt
Francis Crawford Burkitt was a British theologian and scholar. He was Norris Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, from 1905 until shortly before his death. Burkitt was a sturdy critic of the notion of a distinct "Caesarean Text" of the New Testament put forward by B. H...
, to decipher the palimpsest
Palimpsest
A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped off and which can be used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin palimpsēstus from Ancient Greek παλίμψηστος originally compounded from πάλιν and ψάω literally meaning “scraped...
. He himself discovered there other manuscripts (073
Uncial 073
Uncial 073 , ε 7 , is a Greek uncial manuscript of the New Testament, dated palaeographically to the 6th century.- Description :...
, 0118
Uncial 0118
Uncial 0118 , ε 62 ; is a Greek uncial manuscript of the New Testament, dated paleographically to the 8th century.- Description :...
, 0119, 0137, a Syriac text of the Apology of Aristides
Apology of Aristides
The Apology of Aristides was written by the early Christian writer Aristides . Until 1878, our knowledge of Aristides was confined to some references in works by Eusebius of Caesarea and Saint Jerome. Eusebius said that he was an Athenian philosopher and that Aristides and another apologist,...
etc.,). Harris's Biblical Fragments from Mount Sinai appeared in 1890.
Life
He was educated at Clare College, CambridgeClare College, Cambridge
Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1326, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. Clare is famous for its chapel choir and for its gardens on "the Backs"...
, where he was a fellow in mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
from 1875 to 1878, in 1892, and from 1902 to 1904. Harris spent as much time in the Near East as he could. During the same time, he served as professor of 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....
Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
at Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
, Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, USA (1882–85) and at Haverford College
Haverford College
Haverford College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States, a suburb of Philadelphia...
(1882–92). In 1889 and 1890, while on leave from Haverford, he purchased 47 rolls and codices
Codex
A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with multiple quires or gatherings typically bound together and given a cover.Developed by the Romans from wooden writing tablets, its gradual replacement...
written in Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, Syriac
Syriac language
Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...
, Armenian
Armenian language
The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...
and Ethiopic
Ge'ez language
Ge'ez is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the northern region of Ethiopia and southern Eritrea in the Horn of Africa...
. He said that these texts, which discussed biblical and linguistic topics and some of which were as old as the 13th century, were "all acquired by the lawful, though sometimes tedious, processes of Oriental commerce". Upon his return, he donated them to Haverford. They are held by the college library's Quaker Collection. He taught theology at Leiden University
Leiden University
Leiden University , located in the city of Leiden, is the oldest university in the Netherlands. The university was founded in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, leader of the Dutch Revolt in the Eighty Years' War. The royal Dutch House of Orange-Nassau and Leiden University still have a close...
(1903–04). After this, he was appointed director of studies at the Society of Friends' Woodbrooke College, near Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
.
Harris represented two prestigious libraries during his lifetime: Johns Hopkins, and John Rylands Library
John Rylands Library
The John Rylands Library is a Victorian Gothic building on Deansgate in Manchester, England. The library, which opened to the public in 1900, was founded by Mrs Enriqueta Augustina Rylands in memory of her late husband, John Rylands...
, Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, where he became the curator of manuscripts. Most of his publications dealt with biblical and patristic history; he was an extremely prolific writer. He examined the Latin text of the Codex Sangallensis 48.
Included among the topics on which he wrote are: the Apology of Aristides
Apology of Aristides
The Apology of Aristides was written by the early Christian writer Aristides . Until 1878, our knowledge of Aristides was confined to some references in works by Eusebius of Caesarea and Saint Jerome. Eusebius said that he was an Athenian philosopher and that Aristides and another apologist,...
(1891), the Didache
Didache
The Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles is a brief early Christian treatise, dated by most scholars to the late first or early 2nd century...
, Philo
Philo
Philo , known also as Philo of Alexandria , Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew, was a Hellenistic Jewish Biblical philosopher born in Alexandria....
, the Diatessaron
Diatessaron
The Diatessaron is the most prominent Gospel harmony created by Tatian, an early Christian apologist and ascetic. The term "diatessaron" is from Middle English by way of Latin, diatessarōn , and ultimately Greek, διὰ τεσσάρων The Diatessaron (c 160 - 175) is the most prominent Gospel harmony...
, the Christian Apologists, Acts of Perpetua, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon
Odes of Solomon
The Odes of Solomon is a collection of 42 odes attributed to Solomon. Various scholars have dated the composition of these religious poems to anywhere in the range of the first three centuries AD...
(1906), the Gospel of Peter
Gospel of Peter
The Gospel According to Peter , commonly called the Gospel of Peter, is one of the non-Canonical gospels which were rejected by the Church Fathers and the Catholic Church's synods of Carthage and Rome, which established the New Testament canon, as apocryphal...
, and other Western and Syriac texts, and numerous works on biblical manuscripts.
Works
- New Testament autographs (1882)
- Notes on Scriveners' "Plain introduction to the criticism of the New Testament," 3rd edition [microform] (1885)
- Biblical fragments from Mount Sinai (1890)
- The codex Sangallensis (Δ). A Study in the Text of the Old Latin Gospels, (London, 1891).
- Codex Bezae : a study of the so-called Western text of the New Testament (1893)
- Memoranda sacra (1893)
- Stichometry (London 1893).
- Four lectures on the western text of the New Testament (1894)
- The four Gospels in Syriac : transcribed from the Sinaitic Palimpsest (1894)
- Fragments of the commentary of Ephrem Syrus upon the Diatessaron (1895)
- Further researches into the history of the Ferrar-group (1900)
- An early Christian psalter (1909)
- Boanerges (1913)
- The origin of the prologue to St. John's Gospel (1917)
- The origin of the doctrine of the Trinity, a popular exposition (1919)