Sir Godfrey Rolles Driver (20 August 1892 – 22 April 1975), known as G. R. Driver, was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Orientalist noted for his studies of

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...

and

Assyriology Assyriology (from Greek , ''Assyriā''; and , '' -logia'') is the archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic study of Assyria and the rest of ancient Mesopotamia (a region that encompassed what is now modern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southea ...

.J. A. Emerton, 'Driver, Sir Godfrey Rolles (1892–1975)'. In ''

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

'',

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2004. He is considered the "most distinguished British Hebraist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries".

Life

Driver was born in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, son of the noted English

biblical scholar Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Bible (the Old Testament and New Testament).''Introduction to Biblical Studies, Second Edition'' by Steve Moyise (Oct 27, 2004) pages 11–12 Fo ...

Samuel Rolles Driver Samuel Rolles Driver (2 October 1846 – 26 February 1914) was an English divine and Hebrew scholar. He devoted his life to the study, both textual and critical, of the Old Testament. He was the father of Sir Godfrey Rolles Driver, also a disti ...

, and educated at

Winchester College Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of the ...

and

New College, Oxford New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as its feeder school, New College is one of the oldest colleges at th ...

, (1911–1915) where he won the Pusey and Ellerton and Senior Kennicott Hebrew Scholarships and the

Gaisford Prize The Gaisford Prize is a prize in the University of Oxford, founded in 1855 in memory of Dr Thomas Gaisford (1779–1855). For most of its history, the prize was awarded for Classical Greek Verse and Prose. The prizes now include the Gaisford Ess ...

for Greek prose (1913) and for Greek verse (1916). After serving in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, with tasks as varied as hospital work, postal censorship, and intelligence, in 1919, he was named fellow and classical tutor in

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the s ...

. He remained at Oxford for his entire career, ultimately as Professor of Semitic Philology, and produced a steady stream of scholarly articles on subjects including vocabulary of the

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

, and words and texts in the

Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

, and

Syriac language The Syriac language (; syc, / '), also known as Syriac Aramaic (''Syrian Aramaic'', ''Syro-Aramaic'') and Classical Syriac ܠܫܢܐ ܥܬܝܩܐ (in its literary and liturgical form), is an Aramaic language, Aramaic dialect that emerged during ...

s. From 1937 to 1938 Driver was the president of the

Society for Old Testament Study The Society for Old Testament Study (SOTS) is a learned society, based in the British Isles, of professional scholars and others committed to the study of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. History SOTS was inaugurated at King's College, London on ...

, unusually for a two-year period. In 1959, he was the president of the third congress of

The International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament The International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament (IOSOT) is a scientific organization of Old Testament scholars, established in 1950 in Leiden. The first congress was held in 1953 in Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, ...

. He directed the translation of the Old Testament for the

New English Bible The New English Bible (NEB) is an English translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1961 and the Old Testament (with the Apocrypha) was published on 16 March 1970. In 1989, it was significantly revised and republished as the Re ...

from its inception in 1949, completed and first published in 1970.

Selected works

* ''Letters of the first Babylonian dynasty'', OECT III, 1925. * ''Studies in Cappadocian Tablets'', Paris, 1927. * ''Semitic Writing: From Pictograph to Alphabet'', 1948 (

Schweich Lectures Schweich is a town in the Trier-Saarburg district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the river Moselle, approx. northeast of Trier. Schweich is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' ("collective municipality") Schweich an der ...

for 1944). * ''The Babylonian Laws'', with J. C. Miles, Oxford, 1952–1955. * ''Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century B.C.'', Oxford, 1954 (Abridged and Revised edition 1957). * ''Canaanite Myths and Legends'', Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1956. * ''The Judaean scrolls: The problem and a solution'', Oxford: Blackwell, 1965.

References

Sources

*
CDLI Wiki
*

F.F. Bruce Frederick Fyvie Bruce (12 October 1910 – 11 September 1990), usually cited as F. F. Bruce, was a Scottish biblical scholar who supported the historical reliability of the New Testament. His first book, ''New Testament Documents: Are They ...

Godfrey Rolles Driver (1892–1975)
''The Witness'', 105, No. 1255, pp. 266–267 (July 1975). * {{DEFAULTSORT:Driver, Godfrey Rolles 1892 births 1975 deaths People from Oxford People educated at Winchester College Alumni of New College, Oxford English orientalists English Assyriologists Christian Hebraists Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford Fellows of the British Academy Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Knights Bachelor Recipients of the Military Cross Presidents of the Society for Old Testament Study