Biography
Elijah is fascinated by old copies of the Bible. Whether it is the tattered copy of the Scriptures that his grandfather received as an answer to prayer when he became a Christian during the Great Depression or a third-century papyrus fragment of John’s Gospel smaller than the palm of your hand, there is something inherently fascinating about old Bibles. They link us physically to our brothers and sisters in Christ of the past. It can be especially moving to hold a 1,500-year-old copy of the Gospels in your hands, knowing that the person whose handwriting you are reading is probably at that very moment in heaven, his or her faith now made sight, worshipping the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
Because of this fascination with old Bibles, Elijah’s research interests start with New Testament textual criticism and extend out to related subjects—papyrology, early Christian apocrypha, early Christian theology, and textual criticism in ministry and apologetics, just to name a few. As a lapsed scientist, he even enjoys reading scientific articles about conducting research on manuscripts using the sorts of instrumental analysis usually reserved for a university’s natural sciences departments. He completed his doctoral thesis at the University of Edinburgh on a trio of manuscripts from the sixth-century and their scribes. He also maintains a healthy interest in the 19th-century English Baptist pastor, Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–1892), and one of his goals in life is to read all of Spurgeon’s published sermons.
Qualifications
Ph.D. University of Edinburgh(2018)
Th.M. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary(2013)
M.Div. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary(2011)
B.S. (chemistry)Tennessee Technological University(2007)
Books:
Scribal Habits in Sixth-Century Greek Purple Codices. New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents. Leiden: Brill, forthcoming.
Elijah Hixson and Peter J. Gurry, eds. Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism. Wheaton, IL: IVP Academic, forthcoming.
Articles/book chapters:
‘Dating Myths 1: Why the Earliest Manuscript Date Is Not Always Best’, in Hixson and Gurry, eds., Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism. Wheaton, IL: IVP Academic, forthcoming.
‘Two Codices with a Common Corrector: The Secondary Corrections in N022 and Σ042’, forthcoming in TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism 23 (2018).
‘A Lost Page of Codex Bezae: Traces of the Bezan Greek Text of Acts 10,4–9’, in New Testament Studies 64.2 (2018): 213–230.
‘Forty Excerpts from the Greek Old Testament in Codex Rossanensis (Rossano, Museo Diocesano, s.n.), a Sixth-Century Gospels Manuscript’, in Journal of Theological Studies 67.2 (2016): 507–541.
‘A Majuscule Lectionary Manuscript of John’s Gospel at the University of Edinburgh’ (Co-authored with Zachary J. Cole), in Expository Times 127.6 (2016): 261–268.
‘Diatessaron’, ‘Gospel of Marcion’ and ‘Secret Gospel of Mark’, in Lexham Bible Dictionary (2015 update; ed. John D. Barry; Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012–15).
‘“They Took the Body of God”: John 19,40 in Codex Alexandrinus’, in Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 90.4 (2014): 743–749.
‘New Testament Textual Criticism in the Ministry of Charles Haddon Spurgeon’, in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 57.3 (2014): 555–70.
Online writings:
‘Despite Disappointing Some, New Mark Manuscript Is Earliest Yet’, 30 May 2018 at Christianity Today.
‘Was C.H. Spurgeon a KJV-onlyist?’, 18 January 2018 at The Spurgeon Center for Biblical Preaching at Midwestern Seminary.
‘A Lost Page of Codex Bezae’, 14 November 2017 at Cambridge University Library Special Collections Blog.
‘Apa Aphou: Scribal Error and a Doctrinal Dispute’, 28 September 2017, at CSCO [Centre for the Study of Christian Origins] Blog, New College, University of Edinburgh.
‘Window to a Sixth-Century Scriptorium’, 9 March 2017, at New College Librarian: News and Views from New College Library, Edinburgh.