Elihu Grant (1873 – November 2, 1942) was an American scholar and writer on

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

. Grant was ordained

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

minister in 1900, and between 1901 and 1904 he was superintendent of the American Friends Schools in

Ramallah Ramallah ( , ; ) is a Palestinians, Palestinian city in the central West Bank, that serves as the administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusalem, at an average elevation of abov ...

and

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

. Returning to the US he was a professor of biblical literature at

Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smit ...

from 1907 to 1917, and thereafter at

Haverford College Haverford College ( ) is a private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded as a men's college in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Fr ...

until his retirement in 1938. Between 1928 and 1933 he directed four campaigns of excavations at Ain Shems (Beth Shemesh), and ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine reported that he found jugs and vases which represented a

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

culture. One of his lifelong interest was the life of the Palestinian

fellahin A fellah ( ; feminine ; plural ''fellaheen'' or ''fellahin'', , ) is a local peasant, usually a farmer or agricultural laborer in the Middle East and North Africa. The word derives from the Arabic word for "ploughman" or "tiller". Due to a con ...

, an interest which started when he first worked for the American Friends School, and which resulted in three books. The 1907 book ''The Peasantry of Palestine: The Life, Manners, and Customs of the Village'' is described as "a vividly accurate portrait of rural life in Palestine".

Books (partial list)

* * Irving Francis Wood, Elihu Grant (1916):
The Bible as Literature : An Introduction
', New York, NY, on archive.net, also: Kessinger Publishing, 2006 reprint. *Elihu Grant (1918):
Cuneiform Documents in the Smith College Library
', Haverford, Pennsylvania *——— (1920):
The Orient in Bible Times
', J. B. Lippincott Company, *——— (1921):
The People of Palestine
' archive.org *——— (1922): ''A New Era In Palestine Exploration'', GPO, Washington, pp. 541–547, with 7 plates, offprint, the Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for the Year Ending June 30, *——— (1929): ''

Beth Shemesh Beth Shemesh (''House of the Sun'') is the name of three places in the Land of Israel and one location in Ancient Egypt mentioned in the Hebrew Bible: *a city in southwest Judah, remains excavated next to modern Beit Shemesh – see Tel Beit Shem ...

(Palestine) : Progress of the Haverford Archaeological expedition'', *——— (1931): ''Ain Shems Excavations (Palestine) 1928-1931. Part 1. (With an Historical Chapter by Irving F. Wood)'', Haverford *——— (1932): ''Ain Shems Excavations (Palestine) 1928-31. Part 2''. Haverford *——— (1934): ''Rumeileh: Being Ain Shems Excavations (Palestine), Part III (Biblical and Kindred Studies)'', Haverford College. *——— (1938): ''Ain Shems Excavations (Palestine). Part 4: Pottery'', Haverford *——— (1938): ''Palestine Today,'' Baltimore *——— (1939): ''Ain Shems Excavations (Palestine), Part V (Text)'', Haverford College, *——— (1940): ''Palestine Our Holy Land'', J. H. Furst Company, Baltimore, Maryland, *——— (2005): ''People of Palestine: An Enlarged Edition of the Peasantry of Palestine, Life, Manners and Customs of the Village'', Wipf & Stock, Reprint

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grant, Elihu 1873 births 1942 deaths Methodist ministers Smith College faculty Haverford College faculty