Sanday, William
SANDAY, WILLIAM
Anglican scripture scholar who fostered New Testament studies in England; b. Nottinghamshire, England, Aug. 1, 1843; d. Oxford, Sept. 16, 1920. He was educated at Repton School and Oxford, and became a fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, in 1866. He was the principal of Hatfield Hall, Durham; then, recalled to Oxford, he became Dean Ireland Professor (1882), and then Lady Margaret Professor (1895–1920). His never–attained goal was to write a life of Christ based on the new German critical methods. He passed from a conservative position in The Fourth Gospel (1872) to a skeptical modernist view in Form and Content in the Christian Tradition (1916) and The Position of Liberal Theology (1920). Notable works were a commentary on Romans written in conjunction with A. C. Headlam (1895) and The Life of Christ in Recent Research (1907). In Personality in Christ and in Ourselves (1911), he employed psychological speculations to explain the union of two natures in Christ. A cautious, trusted, yet unoriginal scholar, he inspired many by his works.
Bibliography: The Dictionary of National Biography from the Earliest Times to 1900, (London 1912–21) 482–484.
[r. l. zell]