The life and work of a divinity professor who was dismissed from his post 126 years ago for his heretical writings on the Bible will be celebrated at a major symposium today.
William Robertson Smith was relieved of his professorship at the University of Aberdeen in 1881 for suggesting, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, that the Bible was a series of historical documents rather than the literal word of God.
Undeterred, Robertson Smith went on to Cambridge where he edited the groundbreaking ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica while establishing himself as an outstanding scholar of pre-Islamic Arabic culture and major theorist of comparative religion.
His work contributed substantially to the development of Victorian anthropology and J.G. Frazer, author of enormously influential study of primitive cultures, The Golden Bough, wrote of his deep debt to Robertson Smith, whose work was also acknowledged by Sigmund Freud.
Now, over a century since he was asked to clear his desk, a major symposium on the life and work of Robertson Smith will take place at the University later today and on Friday.
Hosted by the Centre for Scottish Thought in association with the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies, the programme is as follows:
Thursday 6 December, 4.15pm
William Robertson Smith: Social Scientist or Theologian?
Professor Robert Segal (University of Aberdeen)
Robert A. Segal is Sixth Century Chair in Religious Studies, University of Aberdeen. He writes on theories of myth and on theories of religion. His publications include: Myth: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 2004), and the Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion (Blackwell 2005). He has also written a long introduction to a reprint of William Robertson Smith's Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (Transaction Publishers 2002).
5.00pm
William Robertson Smith and J. G. Frazer: 'genuit Frazerum?'
Professor Robert Ackerman
Robert Ackerman is the author of J. G. Frazer: His Life and Work (1987), an acclaimed biography, and is the editor of Selected Letters of Sir J. G. Frazer (2005). He is also the author of a pioneering study of the Cambridge Ritualists: The Myth and Ritual School (2002).
5.45 - 6.00pm Tea
6.00pm
Wellhausen, Robertson Smith and the Sociology of early Arabia and ancient Israel
Professor J.W. Rogerson (University of Sheffield)
John W. Rogerson is Professor of Biblical Studies Emeritus at the University of Sheffield. He is the author of, among many other books, Anthropology and the Old Testament (1978), Chronicle of the Old Testament Kings (1999), Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century: England and Germany (1984), and The Bible and Criticism in Victorian Britain: Profiles of F. D. Maurice and William Robertson Smith (1995).
6.45pm
From Pietism to Totemism:William Robertson Smith and Tübingen
Professor Bernhard Maier (University of Tuebingen)
Bernhard Maier is Professor of Religious Studies, General and European religious history at the University of Tübingen. His publications include:The religion of the Germans (2003); Small lexicon of the names and words of Celtic origin (2003);Stonehenge: archeology, history, myth (2005).
7.30pm Wine Reception
The symposium will continue on Friday 7th at 9.30am with:
William Robertson Smith's early Work on Prophecy - the Beginnings of Social Anthropology?
Professor Joachim Schaper (University of Aberdeen)
Joachim Schaper is professor of Hebrew, Old Testament and Early Jewish Studies at the University of Aberdeen. His publications include: Priester und Leviten im achämenidischen Juda (2000), and "Wie der Hirsch lechzt nach frischem Wasser . . ." (Biblisch-theologische Studien 63, 2004).
It will be followed by a discussion of Robertson Smith's German correspondents by Prof. Bernhard Maier and a general discussion of the work and influence of Robertson Smith.