Sharpe, Samuel

Sharpe, Samuel an Egyptologist and Hebrew scholar, was born in England in 1799. After starting in life as a banker, he soon retired from business, and devoted himself to the studies of Egyptology and Hebrew. The numerous volumes which came from his pen during his long and busy life he died in August 1881 were all concerned either with the monuments of ancient Egypt, or with Biblical researches. "A Unitarian and liberal," says the Academy, "he occupied himself in popularizing a mode of interpreting the Scriptures which, though it would now be considered at once conservative and narrow, seemed half a century ago starting, if not profane." His chief Egyptological works were the following: Early History of Egypt from the Old Testament, Herodotus, Manetho, and the Hieroglyphic Inscriptions (1836): — Egyptian inscriptions from the British Museum and other Sources (first series, 1837; second series, 1855): — The Rudiments of a Vocabulary of the Egyptian Hieroglyphics (1837): — The History of Egypt under the Ptolemies (1838): — History of Egypt under the Romans (1842): — The History of Egypt from the Earliest Times till the Conquest of the Arabs, A.D. 640 (1846; 5th ed. 1870): — The Chronology and Geography of Ancient Egypt (1849): — Historical Sketch of the Egyptian Buildings and Sculpture (1854): — Alexandrian Chronology (1857): —

Egyptian Hieroglyphics (1861): — Egyptian Antiquities in the British Museum (1862): — The Decree of Canopus (1870): — The Rosetta Stone (1871). His most important publication on Biblical matters were, Historic Notes on the Books of the Old and New Testaments (1854; 3d ed. 1858): — Critical Notes on the Authorized English Version of the Old Testament (1856; 2d ed. 1867): — The Chronology of the Bible (1868): — Texts from the Holy Bible Explained by the Help of the Ancient Monuments (eod.): — History of the Hebrew Nation and Literature (1869; 2d ed. 1872): — On the Journeys and Epistles of the Apostle Paul (1876): — A Short Hebrew Grammar without Points (1877): — The Book of Isaiah arranged Chronologically in a Revised Translation, and Accompanied with Historical Notes (eod.). Mr. Sharpe's two lines of study met in his work on Egyptian Mythology and Egyptiln Christianity, with their Influence on the Opinions of Modern Christendom (1863). In 1875 he brought out a volume on Hebrew Inscriptions from the Valleys between Eqypt and Mount Sinai, and shortly after his death was published his Βαρναβᾶ Επιστολή, The Epistle of Barnabas from the Sinaitic Manuscript of the Bible, with an English translation (1881), in which he seeks to fix its date to the year of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. (B.P.)