degree in the Natural Science Tripos in 1879 at Christ's College, Cambridge, and was second master at Chesterfield Grammar School from 1882 to 1885.
[2] Thorburn was a firm believer in the historicity of Jesus and an opponent of the Christ myth theory.
[3][4][5] Though a theological conservative and defender of the canonical history as traditionally presented, Thorburn did dissent from common evangelical bibliology.
In his book The Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels (1916) he combated the ideas of mythicists Arthur Drews, J. M. Robertson and William Benjamin Smith.
[6][7] It was entered into a competition and Thorburn won a prize of $6,000 from the Bross Foundation.