Description

Professor John William Burgon (1813-1888) was an English Anglican divine. After a few years of business life, he went to Worcester College, Oxford, in 1841, and took his degree in 1845. The same year he took the Newdigate Prize for his poem Petra, referring the inaccessible city in the present Jordan. In 1863 he was made vicar of the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, having attracted attention by his vehement sermons against Essays and Reviews, a series of messages on biblical inspiration. In 1867 he was appointed Gresham Professor of Divinity. In 1871 he published a defense of the genuineness of the twelve last verses of the Gospel of Mark. In 1876 he became the Dean of Chichester Cathedral. Burgon assailed Westcott & Hort in a memorable 1881 article in the Quarterly Review, and collected his Quarterly Review articles and pamphlets into books, such as The Revision Revised. He is remembered for his passionate defense of the historicity and Mosaic authorship of Genesis and of Biblical inerrancy in general. He is also the only person to have an academic hood shape named after him.