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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: SIV-SOU |
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SMITH, WILLIAM ROBERTSON (1846-'894) , Scottish philologist, physicist, archaeologist, Biblical critic, and editor, from 1881, of the 9th edition of this Encyclopaedia, was born on the 8th of November 1846 at Keig in Aberdeenshire, where his father was Free Church minister. He was educated at home and at Aberdeen University, where he attained the highest academic distinctions, winning among other things the Ferguson mathematical scholarship, which is open to all graduates of Scottish universities under three years' standing
original
series of theological investigations which, characterized as they were by learned research and the use of the most scientific methods, were destined to make his name famous. He was the pupil and personal friend of many leaders of the higher criticism in Germany, and from the first he advocated views which, though now widely accepted, were then regarded with apprehension. The articles on Biblical subjects which he contributed to the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica distressed and alarmed the authorities of the Free Church. In 1876 a committee of the General Assembly of that Church reported on them so adversely that Smith
Smith
In 1875 he was appointed one of the Old Testament revisers; in 188o-r882 he delivered by invitation, to very large audiences in Edinburgh and Glasgow, two courses of lectures on the, criticism of the Old Testament, which he afterwards published (The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, first edition 1881, second edition 1892, and The Prophets of Israel , 1882, which also passed through two editions); and soon after his dismissal from his chair he joined Professor Baynes in the editorship of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and after Professor Baynes's death remained in supreme editorial control till the work was completed. His versatility, firmness combined with tact, width of view, and pains-taking struggle for accuracy were largely responsible for the maintenance of its high standard. But he did not let his other duties interfere with his Semitic studies. He visited Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Tunis and southern Spain, and had an intimate knowledge of, and personal acquaintance with, not only the literature, but the life of the East. His early friendship with J. F. McLennan, that most original
chief
Cambridge , 1885), and above all his Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (1st edition 1889, and edition 1894). His originality and grasp of mind enabled him to seize the essential among masses of details, and he had in a marked degree the power of carrying a subject farther than his predecessors.In 1883 Robertson Smith was appointed Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic at Cambridge , which henceforth became his home. He occupied rooms in Trinity College till 1885, when he was elected to a professorial fellowship at Christ's College. In 1886 he became university librarian, and in 1889 Adams Professor of Arabic. In r888-1891 he delivered, as Burnett lecturer, three courses of lectures at Aberdeen on the primitive religion of the Semites. Early in 1890 grave symptoms of constitutional disease manifested themselves, and the last years of his life werefull of suffering, which he bore with the utmost courage and patience. He never ceased to work, and when near his end was actively engaged in planning the Encyclopaedia Biblica, which he had hoped to edit. He died at Cambridge on the 31st of March 1894, and was buried at Keig. Small and slight in person and never robust in health, Robertson Smith was yet a man of ceaseless and fiery energy; of an intellect extraordinarily alert and quick
See also James Bryce
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