Joseph Henry Thayer

Who was Joseph Henry Thayer?

Joseph Henry Thayer, US biblical scholar, was born in Boston, Massachusetts.

He studied at the Boston Latin School, and graduated from Harvard in 1850. Subsequently he studied theology at the Harvard Divinity School, and graduated from Andover Theological Seminary in 1857.

He served as a minister in Quincy, in 1859–64 in Salem, Massachusetts, and in 1862–63 was chaplain of the 40th Massachusetts Volunteers during the US Civil War. He was professor of sacred literature at Andover Seminary in 1864–82, and in 1884 succeeded Ezra Abbot as Bussey professor of New Testament criticism in the Harvard Divinity School. He died soon after his resignation from the Bussey professorship.

Beginning in 1870, Thayer was a member of the American Bible Revision Committee and recording secretary of the New Testament company. Thayer's chief works were his translation of Grimm's Wilke's Clavis Novi Testamenti as A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, and his New Testament Bibliography. Thayer spent 25 years working on his Lexicon, and made thousands of revisions from Grimm's Wilke's Clavis.