Fixing the Indemnity: The Life and Work of Sir George Adam Smith (1856-1942)

Sir George Adam Smith (1856-1942) was one of the leading Old Testament scholars in the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Scottish church. As Free Church minister of Queen's Cross, Aberdeen (1882-92), Professor of Old Testament Language and Literature at the Free Church College, Glasgow (1892-1910), and Principal of Aberdeen University (1910-1935) he popularized modern criticism of the Old Testament. He was determined to show how such an approach to the Bible was compatible with evangelical faith, a position that never sat easily with the confessional position of the Scottish church, and the story of Smith's life is an investigation into the relationship between biblical scholarship and evangelical faith. In this new biography, Campbell has made extensive use of primary material, including Smith's letters and journals, to fill a gap in the literature on events within the Scottish church in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This critical biography will be of use both to students of Scottish church history and students of Old Testament criticism, as well as raising issues that are of continuing importance for all who believe in confessional Christianity as well as in scholarly study of the biblical text.