Charles Fox Burney (4 November 1868 β 15 April 1925) was
biblical scholar at
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
.
Early life
Charles was the son of Charles Burney, Paymaster Chief Royal Navy, and his wife Eleanor Norton, daughter of the Rev. W. A. Norton, rector of
Alderton and
Eye, Suffolk
Eye () is a market town and civil parish in the north of the English county of Suffolk, about south of Diss, Norfolk, Diss, north of Ipswich and south-west of Norwich. The population in the 2011 Census of 2,154 was estimated to be 2,361 in 2 ...
. He was educated at
Merchant Taylors' School, and
St John's College, Oxford.
Career
In 1893 Burney was elected Senior Scholar of St John's and lecturer in
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
. He became a Fellow of St John's in 1899 and Vice President in 1900, 1906, 1910 and 1911. In June 1914, Dr Burney became the
Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture
The Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture (until 1991 the Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture) is a chair in theology, particular Old Testament studies, at the University of Oxford. Oriel College, ...
, and was additionally elected a Fellow of
Oriel College, Oxford in 1919.
Burney published several works on biblical history. In ''Israel's settlement in Canaan'', he brought much new or newly applied material, especially from Babylonian sources, to explain Israel's early residence in Canaan. A major contribution was the theory that
Yahweh
Yahweh *''Yahwe'', was the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age if not somewhat earlier, and in the oldest biblical literature he poss ...
(Jehovah) was at an early period an
Amorite
The Amorites (; sux, π₯π
, MAR.TU; Akkadian: ππ¬ππ or πΎππ‘π/π ; he, ΧΦ±ΧΧΦΉΧ¨Φ΄Χ, 'ΔmΕrΔ«; grc, αΌΞΌΞΏΟΟΞ±αΏΞΏΞΉ) were an ancient Northwest Semitic-speaking people from the Levant who also occupied la ...
deity. In ''The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel'' he attempted to prove that
St John's Gospel was a literal Greek translation of a Gospel written in
Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, άάͺά‘άά, ArΔmΔyΔ; oar, π€π€π€π€π€; arc, π‘π‘π‘π‘π‘; tmr, ΧΦ²Χ¨ΦΈΧΦ΄ΧΧͺ), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
by a Jewish disciple, and this at least led to an accepted view that the author thought in Aramaic, and strengthened the probability that it was the work of an eyewitness.
Family
In 1913 at the age of 45 he married Ethel Wordsworth Madan (1891β1984), the elder daughter of
Falconer Madan
Falconer Madan (15 April 1851 β 22 May 1935) was Librarian of the Bodleian Library of Oxford University.
Early life and education
Falconer Madan was born in Cam, Gloucestershire, the fifth son of George and Harriet Madan. He was educated at ...
and his wife Frances Hayter. In 1929 Ethel Burney started work for
Rosalind Moss
Rosalind Louisa Beaufort Moss, FSA (21 September 1890 β 22 April 1990) was a British Egyptologist and bibliographer, noted for her work on ''The Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs and Paintings''.
Biogr ...
at the
Griffith Institute
The Griffith Institute is an Egyptological institution based in the Griffith Wing of the Sackler Library and is part of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, England. It was founded for the advancement of Egyptology and Ancient N ...
at Oxford. Together Moss and Burney continued the work that had been started by
Bertha Porter
Bertha Porter (1852-1941) was an English biographer and bibliographer known for her editorial role in the compilation of the ''Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings''.
Early life
Bertha Porter wa ...
(with Moss as her assistant) in the early 1920s on the ''Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings''. 'The Two Ladies' as they were known travelled throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world until the late 1960s visiting digs, museums and collections, and gathering data for the many volumes of the ''Topographical Bibliography'' that they produced together with a small team of collaborators.
Charles and Ethel's daughter,
Venetia Phair
Venetia Katharine Douglas Burney (married name Phair, 11 July 1918 β 30 April 2009) was an English accountant and teacher. She is remembered as the first person to suggest the name Pluto for the dwarf planet discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 193 ...
, is famed for proposing the name
Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest ...
for the erstwhile planet, at the age of 11.
Publications
*''Outlines of Old Testament Theology'' (London, 1899)
*''
Encyclopaedia Biblica
''Encyclopaedia Biblica: A Critical Dictionary of the Literary, Political and Religion History, the Archeology, Geography and Natural History of the Bible'' (1899), edited by Thomas Kelly Cheyne and J. Sutherland Black, is a critical encyclopedi ...
'' (contributor, 1903)
*''Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Kings'' (Oxford: Clarendon, 1903)
*''Israel's Settlement in Canaan: The Biblical Tradition and its Historical Background'' (
Schweich Lecture for 1917, London: OUP)
*''The Book of Judges, with introduction and notes'' (London: Rivingtons, 1918)
* Also availabl
in another format
*''The Poetry of Our Lord'' (Oxford: Clarendon, 1925)
Bibliography
Explore.bl.uk, Retrieved 27 September 2017
References
External links
*Open Library online edition ''The Poetry of Our Lord'
The poetry of Our Lord: an examination of the formal elements of Hebrew poetry in the discourses of Jesus Christ
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burney, Charles Fox
1868 births
1925 deaths
Alumni of St John's College, Oxford
Fellows of St John's College, Oxford
Fellows of Oriel College, Oxford
People educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood
Charles Fox
British biblical scholars
Oriel and Laing Professors of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture