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James Barr (biblical scholar)

Scottish biblical scholar

Summary

Scottish biblical scholar

Field	Value
honorific_prefix	The Reverend
name	James Barr
honorific_suffix
image
landscape
alt
birth_date
birth_place	Glasgow, Scotland
death_date
death_place	Claremont, California, US
nationality	Scottish
title
spouse
module	{{Infobox clergy	child=yes
church	Church of Scotland
ordained	1951
module2	{{Infobox academic	child=yes
alma_mater	University of Edinburgh
influences	Ferdinand de Saussure
discipline	Biblical studies
sub_discipline	Old Testament studies
workplaces
doctoral_students	Athalya Brenner
notable_students
notable_works	The Semantics of Biblical Language (1961)
influenced	Moisés Silva

James Barr (20 March 1924 – 14 October 2006) was a Scottish Old Testament scholar, known for his critique of the notion that the vocabulary and structure of the Hebrew language may reflect a particular theological mindset. At the University of Oxford, he was the Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture from 1976 to 1978, and the Regius Professor of Hebrew from 1978 to 1989.

Biography

Born in Glasgow, Scotland (although one obituary claims he was born in Edinburgh on 20 March 1924), educated at Daniel Stewart's college in Edinburgh and the University of Edinburgh, Barr was ordained to the ministry of the Church of Scotland in 1951. He held professorships in New College in the University of Edinburgh, University of Manchester, in Princeton Theological Seminary and at Vanderbilt University in the United States. He was Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at Oxford from 1976 to 1978 and Regius Professor of Hebrew from 1978 to 1989.

Following service in World War II in the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy where he was a pilot of torpedo bombers and took part in air-sea rescue missions, followed by appointments in the University of Manchester (1965–76) as Professor Semitic Languages and Literatures, and in Oxford University, initially as Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture (1976–78) and then as Regius Professor of Hebrew (1978–89). After his retirement from Oxford, he was appointed Professor of Hebrew Bible in Vanderbilt University (1989–98).

Barr received many honours. He served as president of the Society for Old Testament Study (1973) and of the British Association for Jewish Studies (1978), and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1993. He was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1977.

Biblical scholarship and theology

His The Semantics of Biblical Language (1961) was very influential. In the book, he criticised scholars' reliance on linguistically flawed arguments, such as arguments from etymology or based upon misconceptions about the relation between Hebrew thought and language. Much of Barr's critique was built upon the work of French linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. In turn, Barr's student Moisés Silva built on Barr's work in Biblical Words and Their Meaning (1983). In another important study, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (1968), the Scottish scholar criticised the tendency to ascribe meanings to difficult Hebrew words based on words in other Semitic languages (e.g., Ugaritic). This study has been described as having "put comparative Semitic philology on a new and firmer footing." He edited Journal of Semitic Studies 1965–1976, and served as editor of the Oxford Hebrew Dictionary project.

He was also an outspoken critic of conservative evangelicalism, which he attacked in his 1977 book Fundamentalism. In particular he criticised evangelical scholars such as J. I. Packer for affirming the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy, the teaching that the Bible is without error. Barr's other works about fundamentalism include The Scope and Authority of the Bible (1980) and Escaping Fundamentalism (1984). He was often invited to appear in BBC religious programming.

Personal life

Barr married Jane Hepburn in 1950 and had two sons and a daughter. He was the grandson of the minister and politician James Barr. He died in Claremont, California, on 14 October 2006, aged 82.

Selected works

1961: The Semantics of Biblical Language
1968: Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament
1973: The Bible in the Modern World
1977: Fundamentalism
1980: The Scope and Authority of the Bible
1984: Escaping from Fundamentalism (titled Beyond Fundamentalism in the United States)
1989: The Variable Spellings of the Hebrew Bible (Schweich Lectures for 1986) Oxford: for the British Academy by the Oxford University Press
1992: Biblical Faith and Natural Theology (Gifford Lectures for 1990–91) Oxford: Clarendon Press ; online
1999: The Concept of Biblical Theology: an Old Testament perspective
2004: the article "Of Metaphysics and Polynesian Navigation" in the anthology Seeing God Everywhere (World Wisdom)
2005: History and Ideology in the Old Testament: biblical studies at the end of a millennium
2013: Bible and Interpretation: The Collected Essays of James Barr, Volumes I-III. Oxford University Press,

References

"James Barr and Theological Lexicography", by Sean A. Adams, in ''Pillars in the History of Biblical Interpretation'' (Pickwick Publications, 2016) p.319 ("James Barr was born on March 20, 1924...")
(15 August 2014). "James Barr".
Bartsad, Hans (11 November 2006) [https://web.archive.org/web/20080829111639/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/the-rev-professor-james-barr-423854.html The Rev Professor James Barr, Semitist whose technical approach to the Hebrew Bible changed the methods of biblical exegesis] The Independent. Retrieved 23 September 2014
Williamson, HGM (8 November 2006) [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/nov/08/guardianobituaries.obituaries1 James Barr, Radical academic whose incisive critiques challenged the orthodoxies of biblical theology] ''The Guardian''. Retrieved 23 September 2014
Penchansky, David. (2007). "Dictionary of major biblical interpreters". IVP Academic.
"Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B". American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
"APS Member History".
"Utenlandske medlemmer". [[Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters]].
"Barr, James," ''Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation'', ed. J. H. Hayes (Nashville: Abingdon Press), 1:98–99.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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