John Punnett Peters (December 16, 1852 – November 10, 1921) was an American Episcopal clergyman and Orientalist.

Biography

John Punnett Peters was born in

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on December 16, 1852. He graduated from

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in 1868 and then from

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in 1873. He was part of the school's first football team, and continued to play while he pursued graduate studies at

Yale Divinity School Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Congregationalist theological education was the motivation at the founding of Yale, and the professional school has ...

. He studied at

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and at

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. He was

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of Old Testament languages and literature at the Protestant Episcopal Divinity School in

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(1884–91) and professor of

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at the

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(1885–93). From 1888 to 1895, he conducted excavations at Nippur with John Henry Haynes and Hermann Volrath Hilprecht. His public criticisms of statements made by Hilprecht in speeches and published works regarding the providence of a number of artifacts presented as discoveries made in Nippur sparked what became known as the "Peters-Hilbrecht Controversy." He became rector of

St. Michael's Episcopal Church (Manhattan) St. Michael's Church is a historic Episcopal church at 225 West 99th Street and Amsterdam Avenue on Manhattan's Upper West Side in New York City. The parish was founded on the present site in January 1807, at that time in the rural Bloomingdale ...

in 1893 and served in that role until he retired in 1919. From 1904 to 1910, John Punnett Peters was also canon residentiary of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. He was active in promoting an intellectual approach to religion, social service, and positive relations between labor and management. Peters was an outspoken opponent of municipal corruption and was active in the Excise Reform Association's West Side branch in Manhattan. As chairman of the

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in New York City from the time of its founding in 1905 to 1910, and again from 1912 to 1916, Peters worked to close down or otherwise manage Raines law hotels while advocating numerous reforms to law enforcement institutions and practices. Combined with his father and grandfather, the Peters served as rectors of St. Michael's for 99 years. Architect Frazier Forman Peters was his son. Another son, also named John Punnett Peters (December 4, 1887 – December 29, 1955), initially described the

cerebral salt-wasting syndrome Cerebral salt-wasting syndrome (CSWS), also written cerebral salt wasting syndrome, is a rare endocrine condition featuring a low blood sodium concentration and dehydration in response to injury (trauma) or the presence of tumors in or surroundi ...

. John Punnett Peters died from a heart attack in New York on November 10, 1921.

Works

* ''Nippur, or Explorations and Adventures on the Euphrates'' (two volumes, 1897) * ''The Old Testament and the New Scholarship'' (1901) * ''Labor and Capital'' (1902) * ''Early Hebrew Story: Its Historical Background'' (1904) * With Hermann Thiersch, ''Painted tombs in the necropolis of Marissa (Marêshah)'' (1905) * ''Annals of St. Michael's, New York, for One Hundred Years, 1807-1907'' (1907) * ''Modern Christianity'' (1909) * ''Jesus Christ and the Old Commandments'' (1913) * ''The Religion of the Hebrews'' (1914) * ''The Psalms as Liturgies'' (1921) * ''Bible and Spade'' (1922)

References

University of Pennsylvania faculty American religious writers Religious leaders from New York City 1852 births 1921 deaths American Episcopalians Hopkins School alumni Yale University alumni Contributors to the Encyclopædia Britannica Christian biblical scholars Biblical archaeologists {{US-reli-bio-stub