Blayney, Benjamin

BLAYNEY, BENJAMIN: Church of England Hebrew scholar; b. 1728; d. at Poulshot (22 m. n.w. of Salisbury), Wiltshire, Sept. 20, 1801. He studied at Worcester and Hertford Colleges, Oxford (B.A., 1750; M.A., 1753; B.D., 1768; D.D., 1787); was appointed regius professor of Hebrew in 1787 and was made canon of Christ Church. He revised the text of the Authorized Version of the Bible to secure typographical accuracy and added to the marginal references; the edition appeared in 1769 and is the standard for the Oxford press. He also published A Dissertation by Way of Inquiry into the True Import and Application of the Vision Called Daniel's Prophecy of Seventy Weeks (Oxford, 1775); two sermons, on The Sign Given to Ahaz (1786) and Christ the Greater Glory of the Temple (1788); translations of Jeremiah and Lamentations (1784) and Zechariah (1797); and an edition of the Samaritan Pentateuch (1790).