George Foot Moore

1851-1931. American OT scholar. Born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, he was educated at Yale College, then pursued graduate study at Union Theological Seminary, New York, and Tübingen, Germany. In 1878 he became minister of the Putnam Presbyterian Church of Zanesville, Ohio. He was named Hitchcock professor of Hebrew language and literature (1883) and lecturer in the history of religions (1893) at Andover Theological Seminary, of which he became president in 1899. He moved to Harvard University as professor of theology (1902) and was named Fotheringham professor of the history of religions (1904), which post he held until retirement. Firmly committed to the documentary hypothesis of the Hexateuch, he initially extended these notions to a detailed analysis of Judges (1895; “Polychrome Bible,” 1898; Hebrew text, 1900). A transition in his work is marked by publication in 1914 of his Literature of the Old Testament and the first volume of his History of Religions (vol. 2, 1919). Thereafter he studied Judaism and its normative development, culminating in his Judaism in the Christian Era (2 vols., 1927).