George Ricker Berry


George Ricker Berry, D.D., Ph.D., was an internationally known Semitic scholar and archaeologist, and Professor Emeritus of Colgate-Rochester Divinity School. The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, of which American editions are generally published with Berry's Lexicon and New Testament Synonyms, is a widely used Bible study aid.

Family

George Ricker Berry was born 15 October 1865 to William Drake Berry and Joanna Floyd Lawrence in West Sumner, Maine, USA. He was the sixth of ten children. Berry married Carrie Leola Clough, in Liberty, Waldo, Maine, on 17 August 1893. They had three children, Hilda Marion Berry, Miriam Clough, Lawrence Worthing. After Carrie died, he married Edith Van Wagner. Berry died on Thursday, 24 May 1945, in Cambridge, Massachusetts he was 79 years old.

Education

Berry received his A.B. degree from Colby College in 1885, and graduated from Newton Theological Institution in 1889. He was one of the first students to attend the University of Chicago when the new school opened in 1892, where he studied Semitic languages. After earning his Ph.D. in 1895, he was an instructor there for a year. In 1896 he was appointed Instructor of Semitic Languages at Colgate University. When Assyriologist Nathaniel Schmidt left Colgate and went to Cornell that year, Berry continued Schmidt's history course. He was promoted to Professor in 1897 and in the following years expanded the Assyriological offerings at Colgate. Berry was a member of Delta Upsilon fraternity.

Written works

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