William Foxwell Albright

Background

William Foxwell Albright was born on May 24, 1891 in Coquimbo, Chile. He was the son of American missionaries from Iowa, Wilbur Finley Albright and Zephine Viola Foxwell. His family returned to Iowa when he was in his teens.

Education

After graduating from high school, Albright he worked his way through Upper Iowa University (UIU) at Fayette by doing chores on his grandfather's farm. At the age of sixteen, while enrolled in UIU's preparatory academy, he began teaching himself Hebrew and Akkadian using his father's textbooks. He graduated from UIU with a Bachelor of Arts degree in classics in 1912, and accepted a job as principal of a high school in Menno, South Dakota, a German-speaking town in the southeastern corner of the state. Much to his surprise, the next year he was awarded a fellowship to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He was admitted to the Oriental Seminary of Johns Hopkins in 1913 and earned his doctorate in archaeology and linguistics under Professor Paul Haupt in 1916. In 1919 he was awarded the Thayer Fellowship at the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem.

Career

In 1921 Albright was named director of the American School. During the next eight years he directed excavations in Palestine at Gibeah, Tell Beit Mirsim, Bethel, and Ader. Albright remained director of the American School in Jerusalem until 1929, when he joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins University as W. W. Spence Professor of Semitic Languages and became chairman of the Oriental Seminary.

Beginning with the February issue in 1931, Albright served as the editor of the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, a position he held until he resigned in 1968 because of failing eyesight. Albright used the journal to publish the results of his numerous excavations and research. Nearly one-quarter of all his published work, which numbered over 800 articles, books, and lectures, appeared in the journal.

From 1933 to 1936 he was both professor at Johns Hopkins and director of the Jerusalem School. During this period he excavated Tell Beit Mirsim in southern Palestine and published the first of his findings in 1936, to which he added volumes in 1938 and 1943. Another major work, The Archaeology of Palestine and the Bible, was published in 1932.

He returned to the United States in 1939 and, with the exception of a few trips to the Near East, remained there for the rest of his life.

The last major excavation in which he took part was in 1950 and 1951, when he was chief archaeologist for the South Arabian Expedition of the American Foundation for the Study of Man.

In his most famous work, From the Stone Age to Christianity, published in 1940, he traced the synthesis of Near Eastern cultures and traditions. Beginning in 1956, he served as senior editor of the Anchor Bible series, in which each book of the Bible is translated with notes and commentaries from various scholars. His long association with Johns Hopkins culminated in his appointment as professor emeritus in 1958. His last major work, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan, was published in 1968.

Albright died on May 24, 1891 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Achievements

• Albright was noted as a master orientalist, an expert on the culture and history of the Near E. He was credited with dating a number of Biblical cities, including Tirzah, the capital of Israel for half a century in the time of Jeroboam I. In 1947, Albright was the first outside expert to declare that the Dead Sea scrolls were genuine. Albright’s scientific writings greatly influenced the development of biblical and related Middle Eastern scholarship. His most famous work From the Stone Age to Christianity was translated into German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, among other languages. In 1969 Albright was the recipient of the Yaqqir Yerusalayim (Worthy Nobleman of Jerusalem) award. He was the first nonresident of Jerusalem and the first non-Jew to be chosen for the honor. The title was awarded for his contribution to the city. In a fitting tribute, the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem was renamed the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem.

Works

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  • The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra: An Historical Survey

    (Contents include: Hebrew Beginnings, The Age of Moses, Th...)

  • From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process

    (A monumental work of theological-historical synthesis, Fr...)

  • Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan: A Historical Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths

    ( Professor Albright speaks to a new generation of schola...)

  • The Archaeology of Palestine

    (This book is written for the reader who wants an authorit...)

  • Archaeology and the religion of Israel: The Ayer lectures of the Colgate-Rochester Divinity School, 1941

    (SEE OUR PHOTOS! This hardback volume was published in 195...)

  • The excavation of Bethel (1934-1960),: William F. Albright, director 1934; James L. Kelso, director 1954, 1957, 1960 (The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, v. 39)

Membership

Albright was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1956.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "Dr. Albright traces the growth of man's belief in God from prehistoric days to the time of Christ, analyzing its progress made against the historic backgrounds and changing philosophies of the periods covered. " - The Baltimore Sun

Connections

Albright met his wife, Ruth Norton, a Sanskrit doctoral candidate, while they were both studying at Johns Hopkins. After a two-year, long-distance courtship, they were married on August 31, 1921, in Jerusalem. They had four children.

Father:

Wilbur Finley Albright

Mother:

Zephine Viola (Foxwell) Albright

Spouse:

Ruth (Norton) Albright

References

• William Foxwell Albright: A 20th Century Genius
• The Scholarship of William Foxwell Albright: An Appraisal (Harvard Semitic Studies)