George Rapall Noyes (March 6, 1798 – June 3, 1868) was a
Unitarian minister and scholar at
Harvard University.
[obituary in ''The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Volume 23, 1869'']
Biography
Noyes was born in
Newburyport and graduated from Harvard in 1818, studied divinity there, was licensed to preach in 1822, served as tutor in 1823–27, and in 1827 was ordained pastor of the First Unitarian Society of
Petersham, Massachusetts. He received the degree of
D.D.
A Doctor of Divinity (D.D. or DDiv; la, Doctor Divinitatis) is the holder of an advanced academic degree in divinity.
In the United Kingdom, it is considered an advanced doctoral degree. At the University of Oxford, doctors of divinity are ra ...
from Harvard in 1839.
From October 1840 until his death, he was Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Dexter Lecturer on Biblical Literature in the
Theological Department of Harvard College.
[Paris Marion Simms, ''The Bible in America: versions that have played their part in the making of the republic'', 1936, p. 154.] He was an eminent Greek and Hebrew scholar, and proficient in sacred literature.
[ Noyes died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a few days after correcting the final page proofs for his New Testament translation.][
]
Works
Noyes devoted many years to the translation of the Old
Old or OLD may refer to:
Places
*Old, Baranya, Hungary
*Old, Northamptonshire, England
*Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD)
*OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, Mai ...
and New Testaments, to which he added copious notes. His works, which are chiefly in the department of Hebrew philology, are:[
* ''An Amended Version of the ]Book of Job
The Book of Job (; hbo, אִיּוֹב, ʾIyyōḇ), or simply Job, is a book found in the Ketuvim ("Writings") section of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and is the first of the Poetic Books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Scholars ar ...
'' (Cambridge, 1827; 2d ed., Boston, 1838)
* ''The Psalms'' (1827)
* ''The Prophets'' (1843; 3d ed., 2 vols., 1866)
* '' Proverbs, Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes (; hbo, קֹהֶלֶת, Qōheleṯ, grc, Ἐκκλησιαστής, Ekklēsiastēs) is one of the Ketuvim ("Writings") of the Hebrew Bible and part of the Wisdom literature of the Christian Old Testament. The title commonly use ...
, and Canticles'' (1846)
* ''Theological Essays, Selected from Various Authors'' (1856)
* ''New Translation of the New Testament'', posthumous (1869)
He was a contributor to the ''Christian Examiner
''The Christian Examiner'' was an American periodical published between 1813 and 1869.
History and profile
Founded in 1813 as ''The Christian Disciple'', it was purchased in 1814 by Nathan Hale. His son Edward Everett Hale later oversaw publicati ...
''.
Family
His son Stephen Butterick Noyes was librarian at the Brooklyn Library (now the business library of the Brooklyn Public Library
The Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) is the public library system of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is the sixteenth largest public library system in the United States by holding and the seventh by number of visitors. Like the two othe ...
).[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Noyes, George
People from Newburyport, Massachusetts
1798 births
1868 deaths
Harvard Divinity School alumni
Harvard Divinity School faculty
Translators of the Bible into English
American Unitarian clergy
19th-century American translators
19th-century American clergy