662 JOSEPH HENRY THAYER. 



when he became Professor in the Andover Theological Seminary. Re- 

 signing his chair in 1882, he came to Cambridge, was Lecturer in the 

 Harvard Divinity School for the year 1883-84, and in 1884, on the 

 death of Ezra Abbot, succeeded him as Bussey Professor of New Testa- 

 ment Criticism and Interpretation; this position he held up to 1901. 

 He was a member of the Harvard Corporation from 1877 to 1884. He 

 was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 

 March 9, 1887, and, though not an active member, was always deeply 

 interested in the work and fortunes of the Academy. Other societies to 

 which he belonged are the Archaeological Institute of America, the 

 American Oriental Society, and the Society of Biblical Literature. He 

 received the degree of A.M. from Harvard, the degree of S.T.D. from 

 Yale, Harvard, and Princeton, and the degree of Litt.D. from Dublin. 



Dr. Thayer chose as his field of study the grammar and lexicography 

 of the New Testament, and his distinguished services in this department 

 have been universally recognized in Europe and America. He brought 

 to his task wide learning, patience in investigation, minute accuracy in 

 details, and critical acumen. His " Greek-English Lexicon of the New 

 Testament" will long remain a manual for students and a monument of 

 erudition and industr}'. The statement on the title-page, that it is a 

 "revised and enlarged translation" of a German lexicon (Grimm's Wilke), 

 hardly conveys a correct impression of its character. In fact the increase 

 of the breadth and precision of definitions, the verification of references, 

 the addition of further references, and the construction of the New Testa- 

 ment text from the best manuscript authorities, entailed an amount of 

 labor almost equivalent to the production of an independent lexicon. 

 This breadth of research and exactitude of statement characterized all 

 his scientific work — his articles in the Bible Dictionaries of Smith and 

 Hastings, his translation of the New Testament Greek grammars of 

 Winer and Buttmann, and his work on the Revised Version of the New 

 Testament. To this last he gave many years of labor, as a member 

 of the American Committee collaborating with the English Committee, 

 ami as principal editor of the American Version (the English Version 

 with the changes introduced by the American Committee), which by 

 agreement with the English Committee was published last year. His 

 reading in his chosen field was wide and critical. He found time 

 amid pressing professional and editorial duties to keep up with the 

 enormous mass of New Testament literature that every year produced 

 in Europe and America, and to form well-defined opinions as to its 

 value. 



