T. K. (Thomas Kelly) Cheyne

Born in London in 1841, Thomas Kelly Cheyne was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School and at Oxford, and later studied at Göttingen, where he absorbed German biblical scholarship that was still relatively new in England. He was ordained in the Church of England and went on to become a fellow of Balliol College.

Cheyne is best known as a biblical critic and scholar of the Old Testament. He served as Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at Oxford and was also connected with Rochester as a canon. He wrote and edited a wide range of influential works, including studies of Isaiah, the Psalms, Jeremiah, and the Book of Job, and he co-edited the major reference work Encyclopaedia Biblica.

Later in life, his interests widened beyond strictly academic biblical criticism into broader questions of religion. That combination of rigorous scholarship and intellectual independence made him a distinctive figure in late 19th- and early 20th-century religious thought. He died in 1915.