Robert Charles (scholar)

File:R. H. Charles.jpg

Robert Henry (R. H.) Charles, {{post-nominals|country=GBR|commas=on|FBA|size=100%}} (Cookstown, 6 August 1855 – Westminster, 1931) was an Irish Anglican theologian, biblical scholar, professor, and translator from Northern Ireland. He is known particularly for his English translations of numerous apocryphal and pseudepigraphal Ancient Hebrew writings, including the Book of Jubilees (1895), the Apocalypse of Baruch (1896), the Ascension of Isaiah (1900), the Book of Enoch (1906), and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (1908), which have been widely used. He wrote the articles in the eleventh edition of Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) attributed to the initials "R. H. C."

He was born in Cookstown, County Tyrone, on 6 August 1855 and educated at the Belfast Academy, Queen's College, Belfast, and Trinity College, Dublin, with periods in Imperial Germany and Switzerland. He gained a D.D. and became Professor of Biblical Greek at the Trinity College. In 1906, he was elected Fellow of the British Academy and four years later he was appointed Fellow of the Merton College, Oxford.{{cite web | url = https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/6059f4c3-a9d3-3260-821e-7b30d5f74b3d | title = R.H. Charles Papers | website=Archives Hub|access-date = September 25, 2020}}{{cite book | author = Robert Henry Charles | url = https://archive.org/details/TheApocryphaAndPseudepigraphaOfTheOldTestamentInEnglishWith_439/mode/2up | title = Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, with introduction and critical and explanatory notes to the several books | year = 1913 | via = Internet Archive | volume = II- Pseudoepigrapha |location = Oxford | publisher = Clarendon Press | archive-url = https://archive.today/20200925130808/https://archive.org/stream/TheApocryphaAndPseudepigraphaOfTheOldTestamentInEnglishWith_439/Apocrypha_and_Pseudepigrapha_Old_Testament_v2_djvu.txt | archive-date = September 25, 2020 | url-status = live}}{{cite book|editor1-last=Levens|editor1-first=R.G.C.|title=Merton College Register 1900–1964|date=1964|publisher=Basil Blackwell|location=Oxford|page=76}}

He also became Archdeacon of Westminster in 1919, serving until his death in 1931. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Select bibliography

The Book of Enoch, Oxford: Clarendon, 1893, reprinted in 1895. Republished by Boston, MA: Samuel Weiser; 2003. {{ISBN|1-57863-259-5}}
The Ethiopic Version of the Hebrew Book of Jubilees, Oxford: Clarendon, 1895.
The Apocalypse of Baruch, London: Black, 1896.
and W. R. Morfill, The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, Oxford: Clarendon, 1896. Republished by Filiquarian Publishing, 2006. {{ISBN|1-59986-936-5}}
The Assumption of Moses, London: Black, 1897.
A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, London: Black, 1899. [https://books.google.com/books?id=03VKAwAAQBAJ 1999 reprint of 2nd edition]
Ascension of Isaiah, London: Black, 1900.
The Book of Jubilees or the Little Genesis, London: Black, 1902.
Encyclopaedia Biblica (contributor), 1903
The Ethiopic Version of Book of Enoch, Oxford: Clarendon, 1906.
The Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Oxford: Clarendon, 1908.
trans. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs), London: Adam and Charles Black, 1908.
The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch: Translated from the Editor's Ethiopic Text, Oxford: Clarendon, 1912.
Fragments of a Zadokite Work. Translated from the Cambridge Hebrew Text and edited with Introduction, Notes, and Indexes, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912.
Studies in the Apocalypse, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1913.
Eschatology: The Doctrine of a Future Life in Israel, Judaism and Christianity, London: Black, 1913 (rpt. New York: Schocken 1963 with an introduction by G. W. Buchanan).
ed. The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1913. Republished in 1976. {{ISBN|0-19-826155-1}}
Religious Development Between the Old and the New Testaments, William and Norgate, 1914. Republished in 1925.
{{Cite book|last=Charles|first=Robert H.|author-link=Robert Charles (scholar)|title=The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu: Translated from Zotenberg's Ethiopic Text|year=2007|orig-year=1916|location=Merchantville, NJ|publisher=Evolution Publishing|isbn=9781889758879|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KgZ-DOr77OQC}}
Lectures on the Apocalypse, Schweich Lecture for 1919.
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Revelation of St. John, 2 vols., Edinburgh: Clark, 1920.
The Teaching of the New Testament on Divorce, London: Williams & Norgate, 1921{{cite journal|author=Headlam, Arthur C.|author-link=Arthur Headlam|title=Review of The Teaching of the New Testament on Divorce by R. H. Charles|journal=The Church Quarterly|date=July 1921|volume=92|pages=210–235|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tnFIAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA210}}
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Daniel, Oxford: Clarendon, 1929.

References

T. W. Manson, "Charles, Robert Henry," in The Dictionary of National Biography, 1931–40, ed. L. G. Wickham Legg, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949, pp. 169–70.
"Concise Dictionary of National Biography"