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Thank
you to Rev. John S Ross for the e-mail giving me the following
information about the group of figures above:
"The
group you have drawn attention to is particularly interesting,
consisting as it does of the pioneers associated with the Church of
Scotland's/Free Church's mission to the Jews.
The
person looking to the right above the atlas is Dr Alexander Keith,
father of George Skene Keith - whose photographs of the Holy
Land illustrated later editions of his father's book 'Evidences of
Prophecy', thus making it one of the earliest books to be
illustrated by the use of photography.
The
slender, bewhiskered, profile to the right is Dr John Duncan, the
eccentric but brilliant first Professor of Oriental languages in New
College, Edinburgh and erstwhile missionary to the Jews in
Budapest, who also had a casual interest in the use of photography.
The
child pointing to the atlas (open at the page of Palestine) is Adolph
Saphir, son of the first convert from the Budapest mission.
At
this point D. O. Hill permits one of his anachronisms - neither Duncan
nor Saphir were in Edinburgh at the time of the Disruption, both being
in Budapest. The large leftwards looking profile in the foreground
belongs to Alex. Black, Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament in
Aberdeen.
The
figure to his right, holding a scroll of paper, is Andrew Bonar.
Keith,
Black and Bonar, along with Robert M'Cheyne (deceased March 1843 - two
months before the Disruption) were sent in 1840 by the Church of
Scotland to survey Jewish communities in Europe and Palestine."
[Rev. John S Ross] |
