PCA Historical Center Collection: R. Laird Harris Papers

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R. Laird Harris Papers
Manuscript Collection # 10	Dr. R. Laird Harris [10 March 1911 - 25 April 2008]
Boxes 136 through 147
Content Summary:


Span Dates: 1948 - 1978
Size: 11.5 cu. ft.
Access Restrictions: None
Collection Citation: R. Laird Harris Papers, PCA Historical Center, St. Louis, MO.
Related Collections: Bible Presbyterian Church; Faith Theological Seminary; Covenant Theological Seminary.
Biographical Sketch: Robert Laird Harris was born on March 10, 1911 in Brownsburg, Pennsylvania. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Delaware in 1931, a Th.B. from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1935 and a Th.M. from Westminster in 1937. He was licensed in 1935 by the New Castle Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (PCUSA), and ordained in June 1936 in the Presbyterian Church of America [the original name of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC)] at that denomination's first General Assembly. He left the OPC late in 1937 to join the newly formed Bible Presbyterian Church. Harris then received an A.M. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1941, and was later part-time instructor in Hebrew there from 1946 to 1947. He obtained his Ph.D. from Dropsie in 1947. Biblical exegesis was Dr. Harris's field and he taught this for twenty years at Faith Theological Seminary, first as instructor (1937 - 1943), then as assistant professor (1943 - 1947) and finally as professor (1947 - 1956). Dr. Harris served as moderator of the Bible Presbyterian Synod in 1956, the year in which the denomination divided. Harris defended the validity of church-controlled agencies against those who insisted on independent agencies, and he was one of many faculty members to resign from Faith Seminary that year. He became at that time one of the founding faculty members of Covenant Theological Seminary. He was professor there and chairman of the Old Testament department from 1956 until he retired from full-time teaching in 1981. He remained an occasional lecturer at Covenant, and has also been a lecturer in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan and a visiting professor in India, Hong Kong and Germany following his retirement, working also on further revisions to the New International Version translation of the Bible. He remained active in church leadership, serving as chairman of the fraternal relations committee of the Bible Presbyterian Church, Columbus Synod during the late 1950s, when discussion began concerning union between the BPC and the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America, General Synod. He remained on the committee through 1965, when that union actually took place, forming the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod (RPCES). In 1982, the RPCES joined the Presbyterian Church in America and Dr. Harris was elected moderator that year for the 10th General Assembly of the PCA. Harris was not only a teacher and church leader, but an author as well. He published an Introductory Hebrew Grammar, the prize-winning Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible, and additional works such as Your Bible and Man--God's Eternal Creation. He was editor of The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament and a contributing editor to the Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, and wrote articles for the Wycliffe Bible Commentary and Expositor's Bible. Also, as noted above, Dr. Harris served as chairman of the Committee on Bible Translation that produced the New International Version. Dr. Harris' first wife, Elizabeth K. Nelson, died in 1980. He later married Anne P. Krauss and for the last five years they have resided at the Quarryville Retirement Home in Quarryville, PA.
Finding Aid is normally located in folder number 1 of each box.
Abstract: Box 136 - Correspondence, A - Z, 1948 - 1961. Box 137: Box 138: Box 139: Box 140: Box 141: Box 142: Box 143: Box 144: Box 145: Box 146 - NIV Translation Papers, Final Proofs and Trial Translations for Acts and Exodus. Box 147 - NIV Translation Papers, Final Proofs and Translation Comparisons. ©PCA Historical Center, 12330 Conway Road, St. Louis, MO, 2007. All Rights Reserved.