James Rendel Harris (27 January 1852 in

Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...

, Devon – 1 March 1941) was an English biblical scholar and curator of manuscripts, who was instrumental in bringing back to light many Syriac Scriptures and other early documents. His contacts at the

Saint Catherine's Monastery Saint Catherine's Monastery ( , ), officially the Sacred Autonomous Royal Monastery of Saint Catherine of the Holy and God-Trodden Mount Sinai, is a Christian monastery located in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. Located at the foot of Mount Sinai ...

Mount Sinai Mount Sinai, also known as Jabal Musa (), is a mountain on the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. It is one of several locations claimed to be the Mount Sinai (Bible), biblical Mount Sinai, the place where, according to the sacred scriptures of the thre ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

enabled twin sisters Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson to discover there the

Sinaitic Palimpsest The Syriac Sinaiticus or Codex Sinaiticus Syriacus (syrs), known also as the Sinaitic Palimpsest, of Saint Catherine's Monastery (Sinai, Syr. 30), or Old Syriac Gospels is a late-4th- or early-5th-century manuscript of 179 folios, containing a nea ...

, the oldest Syriac

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 ...

document in existence. He subsequently accompanied them on a second trip, with Robert Bensly and

Francis Crawford Burkitt Francis Crawford Burkitt (3 September 1864 – 11 May 1935) was an English theologian. As Norris Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge from 1905 until shortly before his death, Burkitt was a sturdy critic of the notion of a dist ...

, to decipher the

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 in preparation for reuse in the form of another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid ski ...

. He himself discovered there other manuscripts ( 073, 0118, 0119, 0137, a Syriac text of the

Apology of Aristides The ''Apology of Aristides'' was written by the early Christians, Christian writer Aristides (Apologist), Aristides (fl. 2nd century). Until 1878, knowledge of Aristides was confined to some references in works by Eusebius of Caesarea and Saint ...

etc.,). Harris's ''Biblical Fragments from Mount Sinai'' appeared in 1890. He was a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

Life

Harris was born to a Congregationalist family and grew up as one of eleven children. His father, Henry Marmaduke Harris, was a house decorator. His mother, Elizabeth Corker Harris, ran a shop selling baby clothes. His paternal aunt, Augusta Harris, was the mother of the poet Henry Austin Dobson. Educated at

Plymouth Grammar School Plymouth Grammar School, sometimes called Plymouth Corporation Grammar School, was a grammar school in Plymouth, England. The school was closed in 1937. History Founded or refounded in 1562, one source states that the school was established by th ...

and

Clare College, Cambridge Clare College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college was founded in 1326 as University Hall, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the Unive ...

, he was third Wrangler in the

mathematical Tripos The Mathematical Tripos is the mathematics course that is taught in the Faculty of Mathematics, University of Cambridge, Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Origin In its classical nineteenth-century form, the tripos was a di ...

of 1874. He was a fellow of Clare College from 1875 to 1878, in 1892, and from 1902 to 1904. In 1880, he married a

from

, Helen Balkwill, and under her influence and that of the

Evangelical Revival The First Great Awakening, sometimes Great Awakening or the Evangelical Revival, was a series of Christian revivals that swept United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Britain and its Thirteen Colonies, thirteen North American colonies in the ...

of the 1870s, in 1885 he became a member of the

Society of Friends Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

. He moved to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

in 1882 following his wife who was at the time engaged in missionary work, and was appointed professor of New Testament

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

in Baltimore, US (1882–1885). Harris resigned his post in response to criticism that his attack on the vivisection practiced in the Johns Hopkins laboratories had elicited from his colleagues (Harris was a staunch vegetarian). The couple returned to

Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...

for a short while, as Harris was soon appointed professor in Biblical Studies 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 ...

, near Philadelphia (1886–1891). In 1888–1889, while on leave from Haverford, he travelled to

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 ...

and Egypt, purchasing 47 rolls and

codices The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...

written in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, Syriac,

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

and Ethiopic. He said that these texts, which discussed biblical and linguistic topics and some of which were as old as the 13th century, were "all acquired by the lawful, though sometimes tedious, processes of Oriental commerce." During this journey, he also discovered the Syriac version of the Apology of Aristides in the Monastery of Saint Catherine. Upon his return, he donated the manuscripts he had collected to Haverford. They are held by the college library's Quaker Collection. In 1903 he was appointed the first director of studies at the Society of Friends' new

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...

at Woodbrooke near

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

. In accepting the post, he turned down an appointment as a professor of theology at

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince of Orange as a Protestantism, Protestant institution, it holds the d ...

. However, students from Leiden attended his courses at Woodbrooke. The university later awarded him a doctorate. Harris represented two prestigious libraries during his lifetime: Johns Hopkins and

John Rylands Library The John Rylands Research Institute and Library is a Victorian era, late-Victorian Gothic Revival architecture, neo-Gothic building on Deansgate in Manchester, England. It is part of the University of Manchester. The library, which opened to t ...

, Manchester, where he became the curator of manuscripts. Most of his publications dealt with biblical and patristic history; he was an extremely prolific writer. He examined the Latin text of the

Codex Sangallensis 48 Codex Sangallensis is a Greek-Latin diglot uncial manuscript of the four Gospels. It is designated by Δ or 037 in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts, and ε76 in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts. The L ...

. Included among the topics on which he wrote are: the ''

'' (1891), the ''

Didache The ''Didache'' (; ), also known as ''The Lord's Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations'' (), is a brief anonymous early Christian treatise ( ancient church order) written in Koine Greek, dated by modern scholars to the first or (l ...

'',

Philo Philo of Alexandria (; ; ; ), also called , was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. The only event in Philo's life that can be decisively dated is his representation of the Alexandrian J ...

, the ''

Diatessaron The ''Diatessaron'' (; c. 160–175 AD) is the most prominent early gospel harmony. It was created in the Syriac language by Tatian, an Assyrian early Christian apologist and ascetic. Tatian sought to combine all the textual material he fou ...

'', the Christian Apologists, '' Acts of Perpetua'', '' The Odes and Psalms of Solomon'' (1909), the ''

Gospel of Peter The Gospel of Peter (), or the Gospel according to Peter, is an ancient text concerning Jesus Christ (title), Christ, only partially known today. Originally written in Koine Greek, it is a non-canonical gospel and was rejected as apocryphal by the ...

'', and other Western and Syriac texts, and numerous works on biblical manuscripts. In 1933, a ''

Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

'' was published in his honor, called ''Amicitiae Corolla: a volume of essays presented to James Rendel Harris on the occasion of his 80th birthday''. A new biography of Harris was published in 2018.

Works

''New Testament autographs''
(1882)
''Notes on Scriveners' "Plain introduction to the criticism of the New Testament," 3rd edition''
icroform(1885) *
''Biblical fragments from Mount Sinai''
(1890)
''The codex Sangallensis (Δ). A Study in the Text of the Old Latin Gospels''
(London, 1891).
''Codex Bezae : a study of the so-called Western text of the New Testament''
(1893)
''Memoranda sacra''
(1893)
''Stichometry''
(London 1893).
''Four lectures on the western text of the New Testament''
(1894)
''The four Gospels in Syriac : transcribed from the Sinaitic Palimpsest''
(1894)
''Fragments of the commentary of Ephrem Syrus upon the Diatessaron''
(1895)
''Further researches into the history of the Ferrar-group''
(1900) *''An early Christian psalter'' (1909)
''The Odes and Psalms of Solomon''
(1911)
''Boanerges''
(1913)
''The origin of the prologue to St. John's Gospel''
(1917)
''The origin of the doctrine of the Trinity, a popular exposition''
(1919)

References

External links

* * * *
Biography
* ttps://archives.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/resources/hccoll838 J. Rendel Harris Collection at TriCollege Libraries {{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, J. Rendel British biblical scholars New Testament scholars English curators English Quakers Alumni of Clare College, Cambridge Writers from Plymouth, Devon 1852 births 1941 deaths John Rylands Research Institute and Library People educated at Plymouth Grammar School

Life

Works

Archives

References

External links