Robert Lubbock Bensly (born in

Eaton Eaton may refer to: Buildings Canada * Eaton Centre, the name of various shopping malls in Canada due to having been anchored by an Eaton's store * Eaton's / John Maryon Tower, a cancelled skyscraper in Toronto * Eaton Hall (King City), a conferen ...

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the Episcopal see, See of ...

, England, 24 August 1831; died in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, 23 April 1893) was an English orientalist.

Life

He was born at

, near Norwich, on 24 August 1831. He was the second son of Robert Bensly and Harriet Reeve. He was educated at first in a Baptist private school in Norwich founded by the father of John Sherren Brewer. His school fellows included the headmaster's grandson

Henry William Brewer Henry William Brewer (1836–1903) was a British illustrator, notable for his detailed city panoramas, held to be one of the most outstanding architectural draughtsmen of his day. Family and early life Brewer was born in Oxford on 7 August 1 ...

, later a notable architectural illustrator, the clinician and physiologist

Sydney Ringer Sydney Ringer FRS (March 1835 – 14 October 1910) was a British clinician, physiologist and pharmacologist, best known for inventing Ringer's solution. He was born in 1835 in Norwich, England and died following a stroke in 1910 in Lastingham, Y ...

and the architect

Edward Boardman Edward Boardman (1833–1910) was a Norwich born architect. He succeeded John Brown as the most successful Norwich architect in the second half of the 19th century.King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...

, and

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of t ...

, studied in Germany, and was appointed reader in Hebrew at

Gonville and Caius College Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of th ...

in 1863. He was elected Fellow in 1876; became lecturer in Hebrew and Syriac in his college; was made

Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic The Lord Almoner's Professorships of Arabic were two professorships, one at the University of Oxford and one at the University of Cambridge. They were both founded before 1724, but records of the holders of the chairs only date from that year. T ...

in 1887; examiner in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament in the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...

. He was a member of the Old Testament Revision Company; and accompanied Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson on the 1893 trip to

Saint Catherine's Monastery Saint Catherine's Monastery ( ar, دير القدّيسة كاترين; grc-gre, Μονὴ τῆς Ἁγίας Αἰκατερίνης), officially the Sacred Autonomous Royal Monastery of Saint Katherine of the Holy and God-Trodden Mount Sinai, ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

following the sisters' discovery there the previous year of a

palimpsest In textual studies, a palimpsest () is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off so that the page can be reused for another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid skin an ...

of the

Gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

in Syriac. Bensly, together with Francis Crawford Burkitt, played an important role in deciphering the text on this second trip. He edited ''The Missing Fragment of the Latin Translation of the Fourth Book of Ezra, discovered and edited with an Introduction and Notes'' (Cambridge, 1875); contributed ''The Harklean Version of Heb. xi, 28–xiii, 25'' to the ''Proceedings of the Congress of Orientalists of 1889''; assisted in the editing of the Sinaitic palimpsest; edited

IV Maccabees 4 Maccabees, el, Μακκαβαίων Δʹ, translit=Makkabaíōn 4 also called the Fourth Book of Maccabees and possibly originally known as On the Sovereignty of Reason, el, περί αύτοκράτορος λογισμού, translit=Perí áf ...

(to which he devoted twenty-seven years of labor), published posthumously (Cambridge, 1895); wrote ''Our Journey to Sinai: Visit to the Convent of St. Catarina, with a chapter on the Sinai Palimpsest'' (published posthumously; London, 1896); and edited ''St. Clement's Epistles to the Corinthians in Syriac'' (published posthumously; London, 1899).

Family

On 14 August 1860 in Halle, Bensly married Agnes Dorothee, daughter of Baron Eduard von Blomberg, who, with three children, survived him. His eldest son, Edward von Blomberg Bensly (born 1863), was professor of Classics at

Adelaide University The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on ...

in the years 1895-1905 and then professor of Latin at Aberystwyth College at the University of Wales.''The University of Adelaide Calendar 1990-1991'', Vol. 1, The University of Adelaide, 1992, p. 152.

References

;Attribution *

External links

*
Source (public domain)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bensly, Robert Lubbock 1831 births 1893 deaths People from Norwich (district) English orientalists Alumni of King's College London Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge British Hebraists Lord Almoner's Professors of Arabic (Cambridge)