Samuel Rolles Driver

File:Portrait of Samuel Rolles Driver.jpg

Samuel Rolles Driver {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FBA}} (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 distinguished biblical scholar.

Biography

File:Tom Quad, Christ Church, Oxford.jpg (1525–1529) at Christ Church, Oxford where Driver's funeral procession took place on 2 March 1914]]Samuel Rolles Driver was born in Southampton. He was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, where he had a distinguished career, receiving a first-class degree in Literae Humaniores in 1869. He was awarded the Pusey and Ellerton scholarship in 1866, the Kennicott Scholarship in 1870 (both Hebrew), and the Houghton Syriac prize in 1872. From 1870 he was a fellow, and from 1875 also a tutor, of New College, and in 1883 succeeded Pusey as Regius Professor of Hebrew and canon of Christ Church, Oxford until his death in 1914.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=585}}

He was a member of the Old Testament Revision Committee of the Revised Version (1876–1884) and examining chaplain to the Bishop of Southwell (1884–1904). He received the honorary degrees of doctor of literature of the University of Dublin (1892), doctor of divinity of the University of Glasgow (1901),{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-times-glasgow-university-jubilee/131294008/ |date=14 June 1901 |title=Glasgow University Jubilee |page=10 |newspaper=The Times |publication-place=London |issue=36481 |access-date=2024-01-05 |via=Newspapers.com}} and doctor of literature of the University of Cambridge (1905), and was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1902.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=585}}

Driver married Mabel, daughter of Edmund Barr, of Burgh, near Aylsham, Norfolk, in 1891; they had two sons and two daughters.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=585}} He died at Oxford in 1914.{{sfn|Times staff|1914|page=11}}

Works

Among Driver's numerous works are commentaries on:{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=585}}

[https://archive.org/details/notesonhebrewte00driv Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel] (Hebrew text, 1890)
[https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100334199 Book of Leviticus] (1894 Hebrew text, 1898 trans. and notes)
[https://archive.org/details/booksofjoelamos00driv Book of Joel and the Book of Amos] (1897)
The [https://archive.org/details/bookdaniel00unkngoog Book of Daniel], with Introduction and Notes (1900)
[https://archive.org/details/criticalexegetic00drivuoft Book of Deuteronomy] (1902)
[https://archive.org/details/criticalexegetic01driv Book of Job] (1905)
[https://archive.org/details/bookofprophetjer00driv The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah] (1906)
[https://archive.org/details/minorprophetsnah00driv The Minor Prophets, Book of Nahum to Book of Malachi] (1905)
[https://archive.org/details/bookofgenesisnot00drivuoft Book of Genesis] (1909)
[https://archive.org/details/bookofexodusinre00driv The Book of Exodus] (1911)

Among his more general works are:{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=585}}

[https://archive.org/details/isaiahhislifetim00driv Isaiah, His Life and Times] (1887, ed. 1893)
[https://books.google.com/books?id=uuXF1LHulZsC Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament] (1891, ed. 1901, 1909)
[https://books.google.com/books?id=dEgaAAAAMAAJ ''Sermons on Subjects Connected with the Old Testament'], 1892
Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew (1892)
The Parallel Psalter (1904)
[https://archive.org/details/hebrewenglishlex00browuoft Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament], known as "BDB" (Brown Driver Briggs) (in collaboration, 1906)
Modern Research as illustrating the Bible (inaugural Schweich Lecture, 1908)
Christianity and Other Religions (with William Sanday) (1908)
Articles in the Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Biblica, Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible and Dictionary of National Biography

Notes

References

{{cite newspaper The Times|author=Times staff |title=Death Of Canon S. R. Driver. A Great Biblical Scholar |date=27 February 1914 |page=11 |issue=40458 |column=F}}

Attribution