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Lightfoot, Joseph Barber, 1828-1889We have 1 book for this author.
 Joseph Barber Lightfoot (April 13, 1828 – December 21, 1889) was an English theologian and Bishop of Durham, usually known as J.B. Lightfoot. He was born in Liverpool, where his father was an accountant. He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, under James Prince Lee, afterwards Bishop of Manchester. His contemporaries included Brooke Foss Westcott and Edward White Benson. In 1847 Lightfoot went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, and read for his degree along with Westcott. He graduated senior classic and 30th wrangler, and was elected a fellow of his college. From 1854 to 1859 he edited the Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology. In 1857 he became tutor and his fame as a scholar grew. He was made Hulsean professor in 1861, and shortly afterwards chaplain to the Prince Consort and honorary chaplain in ordinary to Queen Victoria. In 1866 he was Whitehall preacher, and in 1871 he became canon of St Paul's Cathedral. His sermons were not remarkable for eloquence, but a certain solidity and balance of judgment, an absence of partisanship, a sobriety of expression combined with clearness and force of diction, attracted hearers and inspired them with confidence. As was written of him in The Times after his death,
In 1874, the anonymous publication of Walter Richard Cassels' Supernatural Religion created considerable sensation. In a series of masterly papers in the Contemporary Review, between December 1874 and May 1877, Lightfoot successfully undertook the defense of the New Testament canon. The articles were published in collected form in 1889. About the same time he was engaged in contributions to W Smith's Dictionary of Christian Biography and Dictionary of the Bible, and he also joined the committee for revising the translation of the New Testament. In 1875 he became Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity in succession to William Selwyn. He had previously written his commentaries on the Epistle to Galatians (1865), Epistle to Philippians (1868) and Epistle to the Colossians (1875), the notes to which were distinguished by sound judgment and enriched from his large store of patristic and classical learning. These commentaries may be described as to a certain extent a new departure in New Testament exegesis. Before Lightfoot's time, commentaries had frequently consisted either of short homilies on particular portions of the text, or of endeavors to enforce foregone conclusions, or of attempts to decide with infinite industry and ingenuity between the interpretations of former commentators. Lightfoot endeavored to make his author interpret himself, and by considering the general drift of his argument to discover his meaning where it appeared doubtful. Thus he was able often to recover the meaning of a passage which had long been buried under a heap of contradictory glosses, and he founded a school in which sobriety and common sense were added to the industry and ingenuity of former commentators. In 1879 Lightfoot was consecrated bishop of Durham in succession to Charles Baring. He was as successful in this position as he had been when professor of theology, and he soon surrounded himself with a band of scholarly young men. He endeavored to combine his habits of theological study with the practical work of administration. He exercised a large liberality and did much to further the work of temperance and purity organizations. He continued to work at his editions of the Apostolic Fathers, and in 1885 published an edition of the Epistles of Ignatius and Polycarp, collecting also a large store of valuable materials for a second edition of Clement of Rome, which was published after his death (1st ed., 1869). His defense of the authenticity of the Epistles of Ignatius is one of the most important contributions to that very difficult controversy. His unremitting labors impaired his health and shortened his splendid career at Durham. He was never married. He died at Bournemouth and was succeeded in the episcopate by Westcott, his schoolfellow and lifelong friend. PublicationsThe corpus of Lightfoot's writings include essays on biblical and historical subject matter, commentaries on Pauline epistles, and studies on the Apostolic Fathers. His sermons were posthumously published in four official volumes, and additionally in the Contemporary Pulpit Library series.
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