J. Rendel Harris

James Rendel Harris (born in Plymouth, Devon, 27 January 1852, died 1 March 1941) was an English biblical scholar and curator of manuscripts, whose work recovered many Syriac Scriptures and other early biblical documents. He was a Quaker. Through his contacts at the Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai in Egypt the twin sisters Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibsonwere able to discover the Sinaitic Palimpsest, which was the oldest Syriac New Testament document in existence. Harris later accompanied the sisters on a second trip, together with Robert Bensly and Francis Crawford Burkitt, with the aim of deciphering the palimpsest. While there he discovered other manuscripts (including 073, 0118, 0119, 0137, and a Syriac text of the Apology of Aristides). Harris's Biblical Fragments from Mount Sinai appeared in 1890.