Sharpe, SAMUEL

Sharpe, SAMUEL, biblical scholar, was born in London, March 8, 1799, a descendant of Philip Henry and nephew of Rogers the poet, in whose bank he worked till sixty. From an early age he took to the study of Egyptology, and his Egyptian Inscriptions (1836-41-56) showed creditable learning and more than creditable industry. Later books were a History of Egypt (1846) and a History of the Hebrew Nation and Literature (1869); a translation of Griesbach's text of the New Testament (1840), a revision of the Authorised Version of the Old Testament (1865), besides works on Hebrew grammar, on the chronology of St Paul's epistles, &c. Sharpe was a man of singular amiability, a Unitarian in religion, honest and painful beyond most; but his work suffered from the deficiencies in his training, the over-ingenuity natural to a self-educated man, and the lack of knowledge of the work of contemporary German scholars. He died in Highbury, July 28, 1881. See the Life by P. W. Clayden (1883).