Norman McLean
Norman McLean FBA (2 October 1865 - 20 August 1947) was a Scottish Semitic and Biblical scholar.Born on 2 October 1865 at Lanark, the son of the Rev. Daniel McLean (1826-28)missionary to Jamaica and later minister of the UP church at Lanark, and Grace Whyte Millar of Loanhead 1831-1923. He was educated at the Royal High School and the University of Edinburgh, graduating MA in 1885. He entered Christ's College, Cambridge taking First Class Honours degree in Classics,1889, and in Semitic Languages, 1893. Took the Prize in Biblical Hebrew. Fellow of Christ's from 1894, lectured in Hebrew, and later in Aramaic. (1903-31). Tutor from 1911, then Master of Christ's 1924-1936. Ill-health forced him to turn down the Vice-Chancellor's post. Responsible for a number of academic works. He spent forty years working on an edition of the Septuagint. In 1896 he married Grace Luce on Malmesbury; there were no children. She died in Cambridge in 1905.
After a First in Classics and Philosophy at Edinburgh University, McLean took another first degree at Cambridge, graduating from Christ's with a First in Classics and in the Semitic Languages Tripos (today within the domain of the Oriental Studies Tripos). He became Fellow and lecturer Hebrew in Christ's and then university lecturer in Aramaic (1903 -31). His life work lay within a field that philologically equipped theologians had pursued relentlessly since the seventeenth century: the establishment of a complete variorum edition of the scriptural texts. McLean, whose background was devoutly Presbyterian, spent forty years working on an edition of the Septuagint. He was a tutor at Christ's from 1911 and Master from 1927 to 1936. He was elected FBA in 1934. He was Master of Christ's College, Cambridge from 1927 to 1936. He was a member of the Cambridge Apostles, a secret society from 1888.
He is buried in the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge, with his wife Mary, née Luce, who died in 1905.
References
- "Norman McLean (MLN887N)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- W. A. L. Elmslie, ‘McLean, Norman (1865–1947)’, rev. R. S. Simpson, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Sept 2010 accessed 6 March 2013
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