Andrew B. Davidson

Andrew Bruce Davidson DD LLD DLit (25 April 1831 – 26 January 1902) was an ordained minister in the Free Church of Scotland and Professor of Hebrew and Oriental languages in New College, University of Edinburgh.

Following his licensing in 1857 he became a missioner first in Carstairs Junction/Village and later in Craigsmill, near Blairgowrie, thereafter a Probationer Minister in Gilcomston Free Church under the ministry of Dr MacGilvary for a period of six months.

"[9] When, in the following year, the chair of Hebrew fell vacant, Davidson was appointed professor by the unanimous vote of the Free Church Assembly.

[12] From the notes of lectures taken by one of his students (Henry Drummond) it is clear that Davidson was then discoursing to his class on Pentateuchal criticism, but with a leaning to more conservative positions.

"[13][14] The next piece of evidence comes from Davidson's review of Franz Delitzsch's Neuer Commentar űber Genesis and August Dillmann's Numeri, Deuteronomium, und Joshua which is regarded by Strahan as "important as perhaps the first indication of his accepting Wellhausen's general position, which he is careful to guard against misconception and exaggeration.

In the second on the work of Dillmann he noted that, "he is dissatisfied with that scholar's theory of the origin for the Priestly code in the eighth century and leans to a later date.

What is known of its contents of comes from the biography of Henry Drummond, which states that, "Besides the grammar, Dr Davidson then gave to the First Year a few lectures introductory to the Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch.

It was by such lectures that Dr Davidson started in the early seventies the great movement of Old Testament study which has characterised Scottish Theology during the last thirty years.

"[17] The final question which may be asked on this topic is whether Davidson ever accepted in full the tenets of the documentary theory of the origin of the Pentateuch.

[18] Finally, it is a fact that, "he remained sceptical and even sarcastic of the finer distinctions, to which so many critics have carried literary analysis within the limits of the four main Pentateuchal documents.

Davidson contributed to the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, submitting commentaries on Job, Ezekiel,[22] Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah.

He also wrote, in the series of handbooks published by T&T Clark, a commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (1882); and he furnished many articles for Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, among them "Covenant", "Eschatology of the Old Testament", "God" and "Prophecy".

But in the posthumous Old Testament Prophecy an ancient and inferior manuscript has again been palmed off upon the innocent reader, while the perfect Expositor article is left in obscurity.

In the time of the Robertson Smith case, Davidson dropped material on Pentateuchal criticism and replaced it with Old Testament Prophecy.