William Robertson Smith

From New World Encyclopedia


William Robertson Smith (born November 8, 1846 – died March 31, 1894) was a Scottish philologist, archaeologist, and Biblical critic best known for his work on the Encyclopædia Britannica and his book Religion of the Semites (1889), which is considered a foundational text in the comparative study of religion. He is credited as one who introduced, to the English-speaking world, a new methodology of the study of the Bible - biblical criticism - firmly based on scientific principles.

Life

William Robertson Smith was born in Keig, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the second child of Jane Robertson, and William Pirie Smith. His parents were the followers of the Free Church, which separated from the Church of Scotland in 1843. Young Smith was among the first children baptized in the new tradition of the Free Church. Of the ten children born to Smiths, only five survived to live to their adulthood.

Already as a child Smith demonstrated a great intellectual ability, and learned Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages. After being home-schooled, he began attending Edinburgh Free Church College in 1866. He wanted to become a minister, so he occupied himself with the study of theology. At the same time however, he was able to secure the post of assistant to Professor Peter G. Tait, head of the Natural Philosophy department at Edinburgh University. During his four-year study, Smith produced numerous articles on the topics of both religion and science.

In 1867 Smith visited Germany for the first time, and met some distinguished German scholars, such as Albrecht Ritschl (theology) and Hermann Lotze (philosophy), who changed his view on theology. German universities at the time were the fountain of biblical criticism, and Smith accepted the new view on Bible which he though would bring to Britain.

After graduation Smith took up a chair in Hebrew at the Aberdeen Free Church College in 1870. At the same year he became licensed to preach, and on his twenty-fourth birthday he delivered his inaugural lecture “What history teaches us to seek for in the Bible”. He spent next several years teaching, preaching, and joining numerous scholarly meetings to discuss different topic in science and religion.

In 1874 Smith was asked by Thomas Spencer Baynes, then editor-in-chief of the new (ninth) edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, to start to write for him, and in 1875 Smith wrote a number of important articles on religious topics. He approached religious topics without endorsing the bible as literally true, which result in a furor in the Free Church of which he was a member. Smith eventually lost his position at the Aberdeen Free Church College in 1881 and was forced to take up a position as a reader in Arabic at the University of Cambridge.

Smith eventually rose to the position of Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Christ’s College. It was during this time that he wrote The Old Testament in the Jewish Church (1881) and The Prophets of Israel (1882), which were intended to be theological treatises for the lay audience.

In 1887, after the death of Thomas Spencer Baynes, Smith became the editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica. In 1889 he wrote his most important work, Religion of the Semites, an account of ancient Jewish religious life which pioneered the use of sociology in the analysis of religious phenomenon. In 1886 Smith became the head of the Cambridge University library.

In the late 1880s Smith’s health suffered greatly and he spent next several years constantly struggling to finish his work often interrupted due to health problems. He died in 1894 of tuberculosis, at the age of 47. He never married.

Work

Robertson Smith’s first major work was his Britannica article on Bible, for volume three of the encyclopaedia. In it he openly expressed the question of the accuracy of the biblical stories, claiming that scientifically and historically some of them could not have taken place. For the Book of Deuteronomy, for example, he said that it was obviously not written by Moses, but by some writers from a much later period. The whole Pentateuch was gradually put together over the centuries, and finalized in the Second Temple Era, to strengthen the spirit of Jews after captivity under Babylon. Smith thus emphasized the historical and literary criticism in his first work on Bible. Smith believed that text of the Bible was neither infallible nor supernatural in origin, but was written in the historical context. Yet Smith maintained that the Bible, although written by men, was still a record of God’s work and a record of supernatural revelation.

After his article in Britannica, numerous critics arouse to accuse Smith of heresy against church. In May of 1878, Smith stood the public trial against heresy. The event drew large audience from all over Britain, from laymen to clerics and scholars. The trial dragged for three years, resulting in clearing Smith of all accusations, but advising him to restrain from expressing “incautious” statements about the Bible. When in 1880 Smith published his next Britannica article, Hebrew Language and Literature, in which he repeated his views, he was dismissed from his professorial chair at the Free Church College of Aberdeen.

Beside his work on biblical criticism, Smith was fascinated by exotic cultures of Egypt, Palestine and the Arabian Peninsula. He learned Arabic language and spent many months studying local customs. He visited ancient sites and deciphered inscriptions. With all this, his interest increasingly turned to the field of comparative religion. He used the correspondence with his numerous friends - biblical scholars, arabists and orientalists – and combined it with his interest of anthropology, ethnology, sociology and psychology, to create his famous Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia (1885). His two fellow scholars, William Wright and James George Frazer, proved to be of great help. They collected records of religious practice and myth throughout the world, coming always to the same conclusion – all religions pass through the same developmental stages. In 1887 Smith gave series of lectures under the title The Religion of the Semites, in which he further elaborated on his views on religion. This lecture was eventually published in 1889, becoming one of the classic works on comparative religion and social anthropology.

Smith explored the origins of religious practices and beliefs, starting from primitive animism up to the “organized” religion of the 19th century. He included in his analysis the development of ritual and myth, totemism and taboo, and the concept of rebirth. He believed that religious practices have particular importance to strengthen the bonds within society or religious community, maintain the unity within the group. For example, through common rituals and myths, people feel bonded to each other, while through sharing common sacrificial meal, they confirm the bond between them and their God.

Legacy

Robertson Smith introduced, to the English-speaking world, a new methodology of the study of the Bible - the one firmly based on scientific principles. He believed that this new mode would liberate theology from dogmas, so predominant during Victorian times, and would permit flow of religious ideas. His views were met with great opposition and he even faced a three-year long public trial against heresy. By the end of the 19th century, however, the biblical criticism became fully accepted by virtually all British theologians. The texts in the Bible were freely discussed in both religious and scholarly circles, and even the Free Church of Scotland, which once accused Smith, accepted more liberal views.

Smith is often credited as one of the founders of religious anthropology. His views on totemism and ritualistic practices in early religions have deeply inspired many distinguished scholars, just to mention Sigmund Freud and Emile Durkheim.

Publications

  • Smith, William Robertson. 1988 (original published in 1885). Kinship & Marriage in Early Arabia. Hyperion Books. ISBN 185077188X
  • Smith, William Robertson. 2002 (original published in 1889). Religion of the Semites. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765809362
  • Smith, William Robertson. 2005 (original published in 1894). Lectures on the Religion of the Semites. Adamant Media Corporation. ISBN 1402197519
  • Smith, William Robertson. 2005 (original published in 1882). The Prophets of Israel and Their Place in History to the Close of the Eighth Century B.C.E. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 1432623125
  • Smith, William Robertson. 2006 (original published in 1881). The Old Testament in the Jewish Church: Twelve Lectures on Biblical Criticism. Wipf & Stock Publishers. ISBN 1597526428

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
  • Beidelman, T. O. 1974. W. Robertson Smith and the sociological study of religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226041581
  • Bediako, Gillian M. 1997. Primal Religion and the Bible: William Robertson Smith and His Heritage. Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN 1850756724
  • Black, J. Sutherland, & George William Chrystal. 1912. The life of William Robertson Smith. London: A. and C. Black.
  • Johnstone, William. 1995. William Robertson Smith: Essays in Reassessment. Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN 185075523X
  • Kirby, Jon P. 1999. Primal Religion and the Bible: William Robertson Smith and His Heritage. International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 23(2), 87
  • Riesen, R. A. 1995. Scholarship and Piety: The Sermons of William Robertson Smith. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. Supplement Series. (189):86.
  • Rogerson, J. W. 1995. The Bible and criticism in Victorian Britain: profiles of F.D. Maurice and William Robertson Smith. Journal for the study of the Old Testament, 201. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN 1850755531
  • William Robertson Smith. The William Robertson Smith Website on <http://www.william-robertson-smith.net>. Retrieved on July 5, 2007, <http://www.william-robertson-smith.net/index.htm>


External links

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