Author:
James Murdock (Feb 16, 1776 - Aug 10, 1856) was born, Feb. 16th, 1776 at Westbrook, Connecticut. He was son of Protestant
Scotch-Irish descent. He was an orphan from the age of fourteen months, till the age of fifteen,
when his uncle, Rev. Jonathan Murdock helped him prepare to entered college.
Education:
He was admitted to Yale College in 1793, at the age of seventeen and graduated in 1797. He won the Berkeleian Premium, which
was given to the best scholar in the class, and to the one whose exams in Latin and Greek are exemplary.
After graduation, he became Preceptor of the Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven, Connecticut.
In 1799, he took charge, for one year, of Hamilton Oneida Academy, now Hamilton College, at Clinton,
New York.
Childhood & Ministry:
He married Rebecca Lydia (born Atwater) Murdock on October of 1799 and they had 10 children. He was licensed as a Congregational
minister in January, 1801. In February, 1802, he received a call to settle in Princeton County
Massachusetts, and was ordained there. In 1815, he resigned his pastoral charge and was appointed
Professor of the learned languages in the University of Vermont. He moved to Burlington, Vermont
where he was Professor of the learned languages and Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy.
In 1818, he became Professor of Languages. In the spring of 1819, being appointed Brown Professor
of Sacred Rhetoric and Ecclesiastical History in the Theological Seminary at Andover, he left Vermont
and returned to Massachusetts.
In the autumn of that year, Harvard University conferred on him the honorary degree of S.T.D.(Doctor of Sacred Theology)
Difficulties soon afterwards arose between him and the other Professors, respecting his course
of duties in the Seminary which continued several years, until in 1828 when he decided to leave
the Institution. He moved to New Haven in 1829, where he continued to reside. He retired from public
life, and devoted himself to private studies and especially to Ecclesiastical History.
For a few years he preached and delivered lectures in different places, but of late seldom appeared as a public speaker.
He was made an honorary member of the New York Historical Society several. He was also Vice President,
and recently President, of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as Vice President
of the Philological Society of Connecticut, of which he was one of the original founders. He was
also one of the founders and corporate members of the American Oriental Society, and a regular
contributor to its learned Journal. This was an Association of Oriental Scholars, so select and
exclusive that it had no honorary members in America, only three in England, a few on the continent
of Europe, and a few in Asia.
In the Autumn of 1855, Dr. Murdock went to Columbus, Mississippi, where he spent a delightful winter in the family of his
son, visiting various portions of the Southern country, and anticipating a return to New Haven
in the ensuing Spring, his strength gave way, and he died on August 10, 1856.
Resources:
- Sketches of Modern Philosophy: Especially Among the Germans. Hartford: J.C. Wells, 1949.
- On Coming Unworthily to the Lord's Supper. a Sermon [on 1 Cor. Xi. 29], Etc. Andover U.S., 1827.
- Murdock, James, and Thomas Gannett. A Sermon Delivered at the Installation of the Rev. William
Bascom to the Pastoral Care of the Church of Christ in Leominster, May 10, 1815. Leicester [Mass.]:
Printed by Hori Brown, 1815.
- Nature of the Atonement. a Discourse [on Rom. iii: 25, 26], Etc. Andover [U.S.], 1823.
- [Syriac Title] Diyathīḳī Ḥedhattā ... the New Testament ; or the Book of the Holy Gospel of Our
Lord and Our God Jesus the Messiah. a Literal Translation from the Syriac Peshito Version. by
James Murdock. [with a Portrait.]. New York: Stanford & Swords, 1851.
- Modern Philosophy. Hartford: J.C. Wells, 1844.
- MOSHEIM, Johann L, and James MURDOCK. Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern
... a New and Literal Translation from the Original Latin, with Copious Additional Original and
Selected. by J. Murdock. London, 1832.
- “I. Ebed-Jesu's Makamat.” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 3, 1853, pp. 475–477.
JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3217829.
Download the Editions and Reprints of The Murdock New Testament: here.