British New Testament and Gnostics scholar. Born, Gourock 1916. Died, Dundee 2010. Educated, Greenock Academy and Royal High School, Edinburgh. Awarded MA in Classics at Edinburgh University, followed by a degree in divinity with distinction in New Testament. Specialized in the origins of Gnosticism at Cambridge, PhD, 1945. Appointed minister at Strathaven, Lanarkshire, 1946. Lecturer in New Testament Language and Literature, University of St Andrews, 1954. Awarded personal chair, and then the University Chair of Biblical Criticism, 1978. President then secretary of the Society for New Testament Studies. Edited New Testament Studies.