J. Rendel (James Rendel) Harris

Born in Plymouth in 1852, James Rendel Harris became an English biblical scholar, paleographer, and curator of manuscripts. He studied at Clare College, Cambridge, and built a reputation for sharp scholarship long before he became widely known for his work on early Christian texts.

He is especially remembered for recovering and studying Syriac manuscripts and other ancient documents. Through his connections at Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai, he played an important part in the circumstances that led Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson to discover the Sinaitic Palimpsest, one of the most important Syriac New Testament finds of its time.

Harris taught in both Britain and the United States, including posts at Johns Hopkins and Haverford, and remained active as a writer and lecturer for decades. A Quaker as well as a scholar, he combined academic energy with a deep religious interest, and by the time of his death in 1941 he was widely seen as one of the notable manuscript scholars of his generation.