Barton, George Aaron

BARTON, GEORGE AARON: Friend; b. at East Farnham, Canada, Nov. 12, 1859. He was educated at Haverford College, Haverford (B.A., 1882), and Harvard University (Ph.D., 1891). He was teacher of mathematics and classics at the Friends’ School, Providence, R. I., in 1884-89, and lecturer on Bible languages in Haverford College in 1891-95, while in 1891 he was appointed professor of Biblical literature and Semitic languages at Bryn Mawr College, a position which he still holds. He has been a member of the American Oriental Society since 1888, of the Society of Biblical Archeology, London, since 1889, of the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis since 1891, of the Archeological Institute of America since 1900, of the Vorderasiatische Gesellschaft, Berlin, since 1899, of the Victoria Institute, London, since 1902, and of the Orients-Gesellschaft, Berlin, and the Egypt Exploration Fund since 1904. He was president of the Oriental Club of Philadelphia in 1898-99, and a member of the council of the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis in 1900-03, and in 1903-04 was one of the executive committee of the American School of Oriental Research in Palestine, of which he was director in the previous year. He was also a delegate to the Inter-Church Conference in 1905, and since 1879 has been an acknowledged minister of the Society of Friends (orthodox). In theology he is in general agreement with the so-called “new theology.” In addition to briefer studies and contributions to various religious encyclopedias, he has written The Religious Use of the Bible (Philadelphia, 1900); The Roots of Christian Teaching as Found in the Old Testament (1902); A Sketch of Semitic Origins, Social and Religious (New York, 1902); A Year’s Wandering in Bible Lands (Philadelphia, 1904); and The Haverford Library Collection of Cuneiform Tablets or Documents from the Temple Archives of Telloh (1905)