Samuel Davidson (September 18061 April 1898) was an Irish biblical scholar.

Life

He was born at Kellswater, County Antrim, the son of Abraham Davidson, into a Scots-Irish presbyterian. He was educated at the village school, under James Darragh, and then in Ballymena till 1824; and then became a student at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, destined for the presbyterian ministry. His college course included periods in Londonderry and Liverpool, and was completed in 1832.

In November 1833 Davidson was licensed to preach by the Ballymena presbytery. In 1835 the Synod of Ulster made him the first professor of biblical criticism at Belfast College, and he held the post till 1841. Mellor and Rogers, who were close friends, were students from the first intake of the College. Rogers was on the College's committee, and is thought to have followed the lead of the conservative Thomas Raffles on Davidson's reprimand and removal. Alexander Gordon writing in the Dictionary of National Biography stated that "Nothing contributed more to the expulsion of Davidson from his chair in the Lancashire Independent College than [the pamphlet]."

On the other side appeared Dr. Davidson's Removal from the Professorship of Biblical Literature in the Lancashire Independent College, Manchester, on account of alleged Error in Doctrine, London, 1860, by Thomas Nicholas. At the end of this pamphlet Connop Thirlwall, Henry Alford and William Cureton were quoted in Davidson's favour. An account of the whole proceedings was in Davidson's Autobiography, written by James Allanson Picton.

Works

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), Samuel Bagster [publishing], Google eBook full read
  • 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)

Also translations of the New Testament from Tischendorf's text, Gieseler's Ecclesiastical History (1846), and Fürst's Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon.

References

;Attribution