Richard Laurence was an English Hebraist and Anglican churchman. He was made Regius Professor of Hebrew

Regius Professor of Hebrew

The Regius Professorship of Hebrew, founded by Henry VIII, is a professorship at both Cambridge and Oxford Universities.- List of Regius Professors of Hebrew at Cambridge :...

 and canon of Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...

, in 1814, and Archbishop of Cashel

Archbishop of Cashel

The Archbishop of Cashel is an archiepiscopal title which takes its name after the town of Cashel, County Tipperary in Ireland. The title is still in use in the Roman Catholic Church, but in the Church of Ireland it was downgraded to a bishopric in 1838....

, Ireland, in 1822.

Laurence, younger brother of jurist French Laurence

French Laurence

French Laurence was an English jurist and man of letters, a close associate of Edmund Burke whose literary executor he became.-Life:...

, was born in Bath and was educated at Bath Grammar School and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Corpus Christi College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom...

. His chief contribution to Biblical scholarship was his study of the Ethiopic versions of certain pseudepigrapha: Ascensio Isaiæ Vatis (Oxford, 1819); Primi Ezræ Libri ... Versio Æthiopica (ib. 1820); The Book of Enoch the Prophet (ib. 1821; other ed. 1832, 1838), from a manuscript in the Bodleian Library

Bodleian Library

The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...

 brought from Abyssinia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

 by James Bruce

James Bruce

James Bruce was a Scottish traveller and travel writer who spent more than a dozen years in North Africa and Ethiopia, where he traced the origins of the Blue Nile.-Youth:...

; these were all provided with Latin and English translations. Though these editions have been superseded, through the discovery of better texts and the employment of better critical methods, Laurence is entitled to the credit of having revived the study of Ethiopic, which had been neglected in England since the time of Walton. He published also The Book of Job (Dublin, 1828) — the Authorized Version, arranged in conformity with the Masoretic text.

He died in Dublin in 1838.

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