Thayer, Joseph Henry, 1828-1901

Professor of New Testament criticism and interpretation at Harvard Divinity School, 1884-1901.

Thayer (Harvard, A.B., 1850) taught New Testament criticism and interpretation at Harvard.

Joseph Henry Thayer (1828-1901) was born in Boston, studied at the Boston Latin School, and graduated from Harvard College in 1850. He studied theology at Harvard Divinity School, and graduated from Andover Theological Seminary in 1857. He first preached in Quincy, Massachusetts, and then served as pastor in Salem beginning in 1859. From 1862-1863 he also served as the chaplain for the 40th Massachusetts Volunteers. He was on the faculty of the Andover Theological Seminary from 1864-1882. From 1882-1884 he was an instructor at Harvard Divinity School, and in 1884 he succeeded Ezra Abbot as Bussey Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation. His chief works were his translation of Grimm's Clams Novi Tesia-menti (1887, revised 1889); a Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament, and a New Testament bibliography, published in 1890.

A significant part of Thayer's scholarly life was his participation in the work of the American Bible Revision Committee. In 1870 the Anglican Church appointed a group of British scholars to begin work on a revision of the Authorized Version of the Bible, which had been in use since 1611. Hoping to produce a new translation that would be accepted in both England and America, two groups of American scholars (one for the Old Testament, one for the New Testament) were invited to contribute to the revision project. Thayer was one of those invited to participate, and beginning in 1870 he was the Secretary for the New Testament Company of the American Revision Committee.

The Revised Version of the New Testament was published in 1881 in England and America, with the unique 'American' revisions published in an appendix. While some of the suggestions made by the American New Testament Company did appear in the Revised Version, the Anglican scholars had the upper hand in the editorial process, determining which suggestions would be accepted in the final revision. The British publishers of the Revised Version finally published the American Revised Version in 1898, altering the text of the Revised Version to reflect the changes suggested in the appendix to the 1881 edition. But Thayer's New Testament Company had continued their revision work even after the publication of the Revised Version, and, dissatisfied with the new 'American' edition, they published their own revision, the American Standard Version, in 1901. Like the American Revised Version, the new revision was based on the Revised Version of 1881, but it reflected many more changes to the text. The American New Testament Company, for example, was much more concerned than their British counterparts with the replacement of archaic language and the consistent use of one English word to translate the same Greek word in different parts of the New Testament.