10
March 1911. Presbyterian OT scholar, the Mr. (Rev. Dr.
Prof.) R. Laird Harris, was born.
It's
been years since touring Dr. Harris’s excellent volume Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible: An Exegetical Study.
Clearly, it must be affixed to the bibliography on Article 6. It's done. Dr.
Harris had a good and scholarly reputation, "back in the day," but
not sure of these times. This volume is a must-read-must-have
for the young theologue...to the end that he may love God better "with
his/her mind," that he may feed God's sheep with good food, and that he
may assert and defend God's Word.
Harris, R. Laird. Inspiration and the Canonicity of the Bible:
An Exegetical Study. Grand Rapids,
MI: Zondervan, 1971.Article 6: “Of the Sufficiency of Holy Scriptures for
Salvation.” Article 7: “Of the Old
Testament.” http://www.amazon.com/Inspiration-Canonicity-Bible-Historical-Exegetical/dp/031025891X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394488141&sr=8-1&keywords=laird+harris+inspiration
PCA History gives a brief on
his life at: http://www.thisday.pcahistory.org/2014/03/march-10-2/
There was a good deal of serious scholarship which arose
from among the early leaders of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the Bible
Presbyterian Synod. And of the many who accomplished so much in their study and
defense of the Scriptures, the Rev. Dr. R. Laird Harris was easily among the
most notable of these scholars.
Robert Laird Harris was born on 10 March 1911 in
Brownsburg, Pennsylvania. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the
University of Delaware in 1931, a Th.B. from Westminster Theological Seminary
in 1935 and a Th.M. from Westminster in 1937. He was licensed in 1935 by the
New Castle Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (PCUSA), and
ordained in June 1936 in the Presbyterian Church of America [the original name
of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC)] at that denomination’s first General
Assembly.
He left the OPC late in 1937 to join the newly formed
Bible Presbyterian Church. Harris then received an A.M. degree from the
University of Pennsylvania in 1941, and was later part-time instructor in
Hebrew there from 1946 to 1947. He obtained his Ph.D. from Dropsie in 1947.
Biblical exegesis was Dr. Harris’s field and he taught this for twenty years at
Faith Theological Seminary, first as instructor (1937 – 1943), then as
assistant professor (1943 – 1947) and finally as professor (1947 – 1956).
Dr. Harris served as moderator of the Bible Presbyterian
Synod in 1956, the year in which the denomination divided. Harris defended the
validity of church-controlled agencies against those who insisted on
independent agencies, and he was one of many faculty members to resign from
Faith Seminary that year. He became at that time one of the founding faculty
members of Covenant Theological Seminary. He was professor there and chairman
of the Old Testament department from 1956 until he retired from full-time
teaching in 1981. He remained an occasional lecturer at Covenant, and was also
a lecturer in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan and a visiting professor in India, Hong
Kong and Germany following his retirement, while also working on further
revisions to the New International Version translation of the Bible.
He remained active in church leadership, serving as
chairman of the fraternal relations committee of the Bible Presbyterian Church,
Columbus Synod during the late 1950s, when discussion began concerning union
between the BPC, Columbus Synod and the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North
America, General Synod. He remained on that committee through 1965, seeing the
effort through to the culmination of ecclesiastical union with the creation of
the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod (RPCES). In 1982, the RPCES
joined the Presbyterian Church in America and Dr. Harris was elected moderator
that year for the 10th General Assembly of the PCA.
Harris was not only a teacher and church leader, but a
prolific author as well. He published an Introductory Hebrew Grammar, the prize-winningInspiration and Canonicity of the Bible,
and additional works such as Your
Bible and Man–God’s Eternal Creation. He was editor of The Theological Wordbook of the Old
Testament and a contributing editor to the Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the
Bible, and wrote articles for the Wycliffe Bible Commentary and Expositor’s Bible. Also, as
noted above, Dr. Harris served as chairman of the Committee on Bible
Translation that produced the New
International Version of the Bible.
Dr. Harris’ first wife, Elizabeth K. Nelson, died in
1980. He later married Anne P. Krauss and they resided for some time in
Wilmington, Delaware before declining health prompted a move to the Quarryville
Retirement Home in Quarryville, PA. Dr. Robert Laird Harris entered glory on 25
April 2008. The funeral service for Dr. Harris was conducted on 1 May 2008 at
the Faith Reformed Presbyterian Church, Quarryville, PA, and internment was on
2 May 2008 in the historic cemetery adjacent to the Thompson Memorial
Presbyterian Church, New Hope, Pennsylvania.
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