Peter Runham Ackroyd (15 September 1917 – 23 January 2005) was a British Biblical scholar, Anglican priest, and former Congregational minister.
Having left his ministry to return to academia, he was drawn to Anglicanism in the 1950s and was ordained in the Church of England in 1958.
[2] He was awarded Master of Arts status (MA Cantab) by Trinity College in 1942.
[6] He then undertook postgraduate research at the University of Cambridge, completing his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1945.
[3][4] He spent a period of time in 1957 training for Holy Orders at Westcott House, Cambridge, a Liberal Catholic theological college.
[1][6] From 1957 to 1961, he served his curacy at Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge, in the Diocese of Ely as an honorary curate.
[3] In 1948, Ackroyd joined the University of Leeds as a lecturer in the Old Testament and Biblical Hebrew;[2] he had to leave his church ministry to take up this post.
[2] In 1961, Ackroyd was elected as the next Samuel Davidson Professor of Old Testament Studies at the University of London.
[2][5] Outside of his full-time university posts, Ackroyd held a number of visiting professorships and learned society appointments.
He also researched biblical theology, and had an interest in history of the Bible and of the Second Temple period.
[1] On 25 July 1940, Ackroyd married Evelyn Alice Nutt, a school teacher.