1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Davidson, Samuel

DAVIDSON, SAMUEL (1807–1898), Irish biblical scholar, was born near Ballymena in Ireland. He was educated at the Royal College of Belfast, entered the Presbyterian ministry in 1835, and was appointed professor of biblical criticism at his own college. Becoming a Congregationalist, he accepted in 1842 the chair of biblical criticism, literature and oriental languages at the Lancashire Independent College at Manchester; but he was obliged to resign in 1857, being brought into collision with the college authorities by the publication of an introduction to the Old Testament entitled The Text of the Old Testament, and the Interpretation of the Bible, written for a new edition of Horne’s Introduction to the Sacred Scripture. Its liberal tendencies caused him to be accused of unsound views, and a most exhaustive report prepared by the Lancashire College committee was followed by numerous pamphlets for and against. After his resignation a fund of £3000 was subscribed as a testimonial by his friends. In 1862 he removed to London to become scripture examiner in London University, and he spent the rest of his life in literary work. He died on the 1st of April 1898. Davidson was a member of the Old Testament Revision Committee. Among his principal works are:—Sacred Hermeneutics Developed and Applied (1843), rewritten and republished as A Treatise on Biblical Criticism (1852), Lectures on Ecclesiastical Polity (1848), An Introduction to the New Testament (1848–1851), The Hebrew Text 'of the Old Testament Revised (1855), Introduction to the Old Testament (1862), On a Fresh Revision of the Old Testament (1873), The Canon of the Bible (1877), The Doctrine of Last Things in the New Testament (1883), besides translations of the New Testament from Von Tischendorf’s text, Gieseler’s Ecclesiastical History (1846) and Fürst’s Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon.