John W. Rogerson

John William Rogerson
Born 1935
London
Title Professor and Head of Department at the University of Sheffield
Academic background
Alma mater University of Manchester (DD)
Influences H. H. Rowley, John M. Allegro, F. F. Bruce, S. G. F Brandon and Arnold Anderson
Academic work
Institutions University College, Durham
University of Sheffield

John William Rogerson (born 1935) is an eminent biblical scholar and ordained priest of the Church of England.

Early life

He was born in 1935 in London and after serving in the Royal Air Force, where he worked in intelligence, he took a degree in Theology at the University of Manchester.[1] Among his teachers were H. H. Rowley, John M. Allegro, F. F. Bruce, S. G. F Brandon and Arnold Anderson. His ministerial training was at Ripon Hall, Oxford, followed by an Honours degree in Oriental Studies at Oxford, where he was taught by, among others, G. R. Driver. He also spent a term at the newly founded St George’s College in Jerusalem. After graduating from Oxford in 1963 he won a scholarship to the Hebrew University, where he studied under Chaim Rabin. In 1964 he moved to Durham as a Lecturer and Tutor at University College, where he was ordained. In 1971, researching in social anthropology, he made the first of many visits to Germany, which initiated his interest in especially 18th and 19th German philosophy and biblical scholarship.

Academic career

In 1975 he was awarded a DD from the University of Manchester and in 1979 was appointed Professor and Head of Department at the University of Sheffield, where he led a renowned group of scholars.[2] Among his many activities he began a series of annual, and extremely popular, student study visits to the Holy Land. He retired in 1996 and has remained an active scholar. A Festschrift in his honour, The Bible in Human Society, was published in 1995, on his retirement from the Sheffield Chair. He has been awarded Honorary degrees from Universities of Aberdeen (1998) Jena (2005) and Freiburg (2006).[3]

John Rogerson’s interests range widely from linguistics and philosophy to German biblical scholarship, Palestinian topography and social anthropology. As Clines (1998; 23) remarks: ‘There proved to be almost no area to which Old Testament studies could be related in which John Rogerson did not make himself a master’.[4]

He was for many years the Secretary of the British Society for Old Testament Study and was its President in 1989.[5] He is a keen musician and plays the cello, and continues an active ministry at Beauchief Abbey, Sheffield,[6] as well as academic and pastoral writing.

Selected writings

Books

Articles

Festschrift

References

  1. "John William Rogerson", in Crockford’s Clerical Directory (Church House Publishing), p. 715 [2014-15 edition].
  2. An account of the history of the Sheffield University Department of Biblical Studies, including the period of Rogerson’s leadership, can be found in David J.A. Clines, ‘The Sheffield Department of Biblical Studies: An Intellectual Biography’ in David J.A. Clines and Stephen D. Moore (eds), Auguries. The Jubilee Volume of the Sheffield Department of Biblical Studies (JSOT Supplements, 269; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 1-70, esp. pp. 22-24.
  3. "John William Rogerson", in Crockford’s Clerical Directory (Church House Publishing), p. 715 [2014-15 edition].
  4. David J. A. Clines, ‘The Sheffield Department of Biblical Studies: An Intellectual Biography’ in David J. A. Clines and Stephen D. Moore (eds), Auguries. The Jubilee Volume of the Sheffield Department of Biblical Studies (JSOT Supplements, 269; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 1-70.
  5. http://sots1917.org/past-presidents/
  6. http://beauchiefabbeypress.org.uk
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