Conant, Thomas Jefferson
CONANT, THOMAS JEFFERSON (1802-1891), American Biblical scholar, was born at Brandon, Vermont, on the 13th of December 1802. Graduating at Middlebury College in 1823, he became tutor in the Columbian University (now George Washington University) from 1825 to 1827, professor of Greek, Latin and German at Waterville College (now Colby College) from 1827 to 1833, professor of biblical literature and criticism in Hamilton (New York) Theological Institute from 1835 to 1851, and professor of Hebrew and of Biblical exegesis in Rochester Theological Seminary from 1851 to 1857. From 1857 to 1875 he was employed by the American Bible Union on the revision of the New Testament (1871). He married in 1830 Hannah O'Brien Chaplin (1809-1865), who was herself the author of The Earnest Man, a biography of Adoniram Judson (1855), and of The History of the English Bible (1859), besides being her husband's able assistant in his Hebrew studies. He died in Brooklyn, New York, on the 30th of April 1891. Conant was the foremost Hebrew scholar of his time in America. His treatise, The Meaning and Use of "Baptizein" Philologically and Historically Investigated (1860), an "appendix to the revised version of the Gospel by Matthew," is a valuable summary of the evidence for Baptist doctrine. He translated and edited Gesenius's Hebrew Grammar (1839; 1877), and published revised versions with notes of Job (1856), Genesis (1868), Psalms (1871), Proverbs (1872), Isaiah i.-xiii. 22 (1874), and Historical Books of the Old Testament, Joshua to II. Kings (1884).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
