Millar Burrows

Millar Burrows (Wyoming, Ohio, October 26, 1889 – April 29, 1980) was an American biblical scholar, a leading authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls and professor emeritus at Yale Divinity School. Burrows was director of American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem (now the William F. Albright School of Archaeological Research), and later president of the American Schools of Oriental Research. His grandson, Edwin G. Burrows (1943–2018), was an American historian and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Early life and education Burrows was born on October 26, 1889, in Wyoming, Ohio. He was one of three sons born to Edwin Jones, a businessman, and Katharine Douglas (Millar) Burrows. He studied at Cornell University, graduating in 1912. He then attended the Union Theological Seminary, New York, to train for ordination, and he graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity (BD) degree in 1915. and was able to communicate the results of research in language understandable to the public. Burrows gave working names to several of the scrolls, such as the "Manual of Discipline" to 1QS. Burrows worked on the Isaiah Scroll, pointing out its consistency with the Masoretic Text.

Burrows also wrote on the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. On the Bible he once noted that it is concerned with three subjects: religion, agriculture, and war.

Works Founders of Great Religions 1931 An Outline of Biblical Theology. Westminster Press, 1946. Palestine is Our Business. Westminster Press, 1949. The Dead Sea Scrolls. Viking Press, 1955. Reprint: Gramercy Publishing, 1986. ISBN 0-517-62535-0 More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Viking Press, 1958. Jesus in the First Three Gospels. Abingdon Press, 1977.

Burrows also served on the Advisory Board for Peake's Commentary on the Bible (1962), to which he contributed an article on "The Social Institutions of Israel."