Crawford H. Toy joins Harvard faculty and teaches Arabic
Orientalism and the study of Islam 1880
Crawford H. Toy Joins Harvard Faculty and Teaches Arabic
Crawford H. Toy was born in Virginia in 1836 and studied at the University of Virginia and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. After serving in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, Toy spent two years in Germany studying theology and Semitic languages at Berlin. He then became a professor of Old Testament interpretation at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary but resigned due to his unwillingness to accept the doctrine of inspiration of the scriptures, which was insisted upon at that institution. Professor Toy then joined Harvard Divinity School, at which “no assent to the peculiar doctrines or practices of any denomination of Christians” was required, as Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages and Dexter Lecturer on Biblical Literature. In his first year at Harvard, Professor Toy taught Old Testament Hebrew and offered Arabic as an elective.
