14 Facts About Samuel Davidson

Samuel Davidson was born at Kellswater, County Antrim, the son of Abraham Davidson, into a Scots-Irish presbyterian.

Samuel Davidson was educated at the village school, under James Darragh, and then in Ballymena till 1824; and then became a student at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, destined for the presbyterian ministry.

In November 1833 Davidson was licensed to preach by the Ballymena presbytery.

In 1847 the congregational lecture in London was delivered by Samuel Davidson and published in 1848 as the Ecclesiastical Polity of the New Testament.

Samuel Davidson's views had undergone changes, but he was not able to rewrite it.

Samuel Davidson was obliged to resign in 1857, clashing with the college authorities over the publication of an introduction to the Old Testament, The Text of the Old Testament, and the Interpretation of the Bible, written for a new edition of Horne's Introduction to the Sacred Scripture.

Samuel Davidson's work appeared in October 1856 as part of vol.

Samuel Davidson never lost the feeling that he had from then been treated unjustly.

The committee, in February 1857, requested Samuel Davidson to prepare "an explanation" of parts of his book deemed objectionable, and to "make concession where concession may be justly due".

The committee declared those explanations "far from satisfactory", and after correspondence Samuel Davidson resigned his post.

Controversy ensued: Samuel Davidson was accused of doctrinal unsoundness, and charged with plagiarism from German writers.

An account of the whole proceedings was in Samuel Davidson's Autobiography, written by James Allanson Picton.

In 1862 Samuel Davidson moved to London to become scripture examiner in the University of London, and he spent the rest of his life in literary work.

Samuel Davidson is sometimes mistakenly listed as a member of the Old Testament Revision Committee for the Revised Version of 1881.