Abbot, Ezra, 1819-1884. Papers, 1813-1881.

Ezra Abbot (1819-1884) is considered one of the most preeminent scholars of New Testament textual criticism in the nineteenth century. Abbot earned his undergraduate degree in 1840 and his M.A. in 1843, both from Bowdoin College. After leaving Bowdoin, Abbot taught high school in Cambridgeport (Mass.) until he acquired the post of Assistant Librarian of Harvard College in 1856. In 1871 he was named a lecturer on New Testament textual criticism, and in 1872 he was awarded the Bussey Professorship of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Harvard Divinity School. He is most well known in academic circles for his editing work for which he received no credit for authorship. However, Abbot's successor, Joseph Henry Thayer, collected a number of Abbot's most well known published articles in a collection called Critical Essays Selected from the Published Papers of Ezra Abbot (1888). This collection contains Abbot's best known work, The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel: External Evidences (1880), which defends the traditional authorship of the Gospel of John.