Alexander Roberts

Alexander Roberts DD (Marykirk, Kincardineshire, 12 May 1826 – 8 March 1901) was a Scottish biblical scholar.

Life

Born at Marykirk, Kincardineshire, on 12 May 1826, he was the son of Alexander Roberts, a flax-spinner. He was educated at the grammar school and King's College, Aberdeen, where he graduated M.A. in March 1847, being the Simpson Greek prizeman.^[1]

Roberts was a presbyterian minister (1852–71) in Scotland and London. In 1864, then a minister at Carlton Hill, London, he was made Doctor of Divinty of Edinburgh University. He was also minister at St. John's Wood, and was a member of the New Testament revision company (1870–84). In 1872, he succeeded John Campbell Shairp in the chair of humanity at the University of St. Andrews; he was made emeritus professor in 1899. He died at St. Andrews, Mitcham Park, Surrey, on 8 March 1901.^[1] He was returned to St Andrews for burial and lies in the south-east corner of the churchyard of St Andrews Cathedral.^{[citation needed]}

Family

Roberts married on 2 December 1852 Mary Anne Speid (died 18 January 1911), and had fourteen children, of whom four sons and eight daughters survived him.^[1]

Works

Roberts co-operated with Sir James Donaldson as editor and part translator of the English versions of ecclesiastical writers published as the Ante-Nicene Christian Library (1867–72, 24 vols.), the first major edition in English of these Church Fathers. ^[2] He translated also the Works of Sulpitius Severus (1895) in the Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. He was best known for the series of works in which he maintained that Greek was the habitual speech of Jesus, a conclusion unpopular at the time.^[1]

Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Gordon 1912.
^ Roberts, Alexander - Oxford DNB

References

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gordon, Alexander (1912). "Roberts, Alexander". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography (2nd supplement). Vol. 3. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Hawke, Joanna. "Roberts, Alexander (1826–1901)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35767. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)