Edgar Johnson Goodspeed (1871,
Quincy, Illinois –
1962), the
American scholar of
Greek and the
New Testament, was a liberal
theologian who graduated from
Denison University (where he also received a
doctorate in Divinity, 1928) and the
University of Chicago (Ph.D. 1898), where he taught for many years, and
whose collection of
New Testament
manuscripts he enriched by his searches. The University's collection is
now named in his honor.
He is widely remembered for his
translations of the
Bible: The
New Testament: an American Translation (1923), and (with J. M. Powis-Smith)
The Complete Bible" an American Translation (1939), the "Goodspeed
Bible".
Edgar J. Goodspeed died in 1962 and was
interred in the
Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in
Glendale, California.
Aside from his scholarly work, he wrote
many non-dogmatic introductions to biblical literature for the lay
reader:
- The Story of the Bible and
- The Story of the Apocrypha,
- How to Read the Bible 1946
- The Twelve, The Story of Christ's
Apostles
- Strange New Gospels, 1931
- How Came the Bible?,
Abingdon–Cokesbury Press, c1940.
- A History of Early Christian
Literature,
University of Chicago Press, 1942
- Problems of New Testament
Translation, 1945.
- The Life of Jesus for Young People
- Modern Apocrypha, The Beacon
Press, 1956