Editing Ezra Abbot (section)

==Life and writings==
Abbot was born at [[Jackson, Maine]], April 28, 1819; son of Ezra and Phebe Abbot.{{sfn|Johnson|1906|p=22}} He was educated at [[Phillips Exeter Academy]] and graduated from [[Bowdoin College]] in 1840.{{sfn|Johnson|1906|p=22}} In 1847, at the request of [[Andrews Norton]], he went to [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]] where he was principal of a public school until 1856. He was assistant librarian of [[Harvard University]] from 1856 to 1872, and planned and perfected an alphabetical card catalog, combining many of the advantages of the ordinary dictionary catalogs with the grouping of the minor topics under more general heads, which is characteristic of a systematic catalogue. From 1872 until his death he was Bussey Professor of [[New Testament]] Criticism and Interpretation in the [[Harvard Divinity School]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}{{sfn|Johnson|1906|p=22}}

Abbot's studies were chiefly in Southwest Asian languages and textual criticism of the New Testament, though his work as a bibliographer showed such results as the exhaustive list of writings (5300 in all) on the doctrine of the future life, appended to [[W. R. Alger|William Rounseville Alger]]'s ''History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, as it has prevailed in all Nations and Ages'' (1862), and published separately in 1864.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}{{sfn|Johnson|1906|p=22}}

Abbot's publications, though always of the most thorough and scholarly character, were to a large extent dispersed in the pages of reviews, dictionaries, concordances, texts edited by others, [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]] controversial treatises, etc. However, he took a more conspicuous and personal part in the preparation (with [[Baptist]] scholar [[Horatio Balch Hackett]]) of the enlarged American edition of Dr. (afterwards Sir) [[William Robertson Smith|William Smith]]'s ''Dictionary of the Bible'' (1867–1870), to which he contributed more than 400 articles, as well as greatly improving the bibliographical completeness of the work. He was an efficient member of the American revision committee for the Revised Version (1881–1885) of the [[King James Bible]], and helped prepare [[Caspar René Gregory]]'s Prolegomena to the revised [[Greek language|Greek]] New Testament of [[Constantin von Tischendorf]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}{{sfn|Johnson|1906|p=22}}

He was one of the 32 founding members of the [[Society of Biblical Literature]] in 1880.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/SearchingScriptures.pdf|title=Searching the Scriptures:A History of the Society of Biblical Literature|author=Saunders, Ernest W.|year=1982}}</ref>

His principal single work, representing his scholarly method and conservative conclusions, was ''The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel: External Evidences'' (1880; 2nd ed. by J. H. Thayer, with other essays, 1889), originally a lecture. In spite of the compression due to its form, this work was up to that time probably the ablest defense, based on external evidence, of the Johannine authorship, and certainly the most complete treatment of the relation of [[Justin Martyr]] to this gospel.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}{{sfn|Johnson|1906|p=22}}