Ezra Abbot (April 28, 1819, Jackson, MaineMarch 21, 1884,

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

) was an American biblical scholar.

Life and writings

Abbot was born at Jackson, Maine, April 28, 1819; son of Ezra and Phebe Abbot. He was educated at

Phillips Exeter Academy Phillips Exeter Academy (often called Exeter or PEA) is an Independent school, independent, co-educational, college-preparatory school in Exeter, New Hampshire. Established in 1781, it is America's sixth-oldest boarding school and educates an es ...

and graduated from

Bowdoin College Bowdoin College ( ) is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine. It was chartered in 1794. The main Bowdoin campus is located near Casco Bay and the Androscoggin River. In a ...

in 1840. In 1847, at the request of Andrews Norton, he went to

where he was principal of a public school until 1856. He was assistant librarian of

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

from 1856 to 1872, and planned and perfected an alphabetical card catalog, combining many of the advantages of the ordinary dictionary catalogs with the grouping of the minor topics under more general heads, which is characteristic of a systematic catalogue. From 1872 until his death he was Bussey Professor of

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

Criticism and Interpretation in the

Harvard Divinity School Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the religious studies, academic study of religion or for leadership role ...

. Abbot's studies were chiefly in Southwest Asian languages and textual criticism of the New Testament, though his work as a bibliographer showed such results as the exhaustive list of writings (5300 in all) on the doctrine of the future life, appended to William Rounseville Alger's ''History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, as it has prevailed in all Nations and Ages'' (1862), and published separately in 1864. Abbot's publications, though always of the most thorough and scholarly character, were to a large extent dispersed in the pages of reviews, dictionaries, concordances, texts edited by others, Unitarian controversial treatises, etc. However, he took a more conspicuous and personal part in the preparation (with

Baptist Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

scholar Horatio Balch Hackett) of the enlarged American edition of Dr. (afterwards Sir) William Smith's ''Dictionary of the Bible'' (1867–1870), to which he contributed more than 400 articles, as well as greatly improving the bibliographical completeness of the work. He was an efficient member of the American revision committee for the Revised Version (1881–1885) of the King James Bible, and helped prepare Caspar René Gregory's Prolegomena to the revised Greek New Testament of

Constantin von Tischendorf Constantin is an Aromanian language, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian language, Megleno-Romanian and Romanian language, Romanian male given name. It can also be a surname. For a list of notable people called Constantin, see Constantine (name). See ...

. He was one of the 32 founding members of the Society of Biblical Literature in 1880. His principal single work, representing his scholarly method and conservative conclusions, was ''The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel: External Evidences'' (1880; 2nd ed. by J. H. Thayer, with other essays, 1889), originally a lecture. In spite of the compression due to its form, this work was up to that time probably the ablest defense, based on external evidence, of the Johannine authorship, and certainly the most complete treatment of the relation of Justin Martyr to this gospel.

Honors

Abbot was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

in 1861. Though a layman, he received the degree of S.T.D. from Harvard in 1872, and that of D.D. from

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

in 1884.

Works

Books

* - revised by Ezra Abbot * ——— (1872)
Memoir of the Controversy Respecting the Three Heavenly Witnesses: I John V. 7
* * *

Journal articles

References

Attribution * * Endnote: **See S. J. Barrows, ''Ezra Abbot'' (Cambridge, Mass., 1884).

External links

* * * * Th
historical records
of Ezra Abbot are in the Harvard Divinity School Library at

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Abbot, Ezra 1819 births 1884 deaths 19th-century biblical scholars American religion academics American religious writers Bowdoin College alumni Harvard Divinity School faculty Harvard University staff People from Waldo County, Maine Writers from Cambridge, Massachusetts Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences American biblical scholars New Testament scholars Translators of the Bible into English 19th-century American translators Harvard University librarians Phillips Exeter Academy alumni