Richard J. Coggins (10 June 1929 – 19 November 2017) was a British biblical commentator, notable for his contributions to The Cambridge Bible Commentaries.

Life

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St Matthew's Brixton

Coggins graduated from Exeter College, Oxford in 1950 and after training for the priesthood in the Church of England at St Stephen's House, Oxford served a curacy in the Diocese of Exeter. He spent five years in Oxford as a tutor and chaplain at St Stephen's House before joining King's College London as a Lecturer in Old Testament studies in 1962. He retired as a senior lecturer in 1994. Among his students during his early years at King's was the future Archbishop Desmond Tutu.[citation needed]

Coggins was public preacher at the Anglican Diocese of Southwark and belonged to St Matthew, Brixton.[1] In his retirement he moved to Lymington in Hampshire.[citation needed]

On 4 March 1994 a day conference was held in honour of Richard Coggins and his colleague Leslie Houlden to mark their retirement from King's College London; the speaker in honour of Coggins was the Old Testament scholar Robert P. Carroll.[citation needed]

A memorial service for Richard Coggins was held in the chapel of King's College London on 22 May 2018; the address was provided by the Old Testament scholar Paul Joyce.[citation needed]

Works

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  • Samaritans and Jews: The Origins of Samaritanism Reconsidered (1975)
  • The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah (Cambridge Bible Commentary) (1976)
  • The First and Second Books of the Chronicles (Cambridge Bible Commentary) (1976)
  • The First and Second Books of Esdras (Cambridge Bible Commentary) (with Michael Knibb) (1979)
  • Who's Who in the Bible (1981)
  • Israel's Prophetic Tradition: Essays in Honour of Peter R. Ackroyd (edited, with Anthony Phillips and Michael Knibb) (1982)
  • Nahum, Obadiah, Esther: Israel among the Nations (International Theological Commentary) (with S. Paul Re'emi) (1986)
  • Introducing the Old Testament (1990)
  • Coggins, R. J.; Houlden, J. L., eds. (1990). A Dictionary of Biblical interpretation. London: SCM Press. ISBN 978-0334002949.
  • A Dictionary of the Bible (with W.R.F. Browning and Graham N. Stanton) (1996)
  • Sirach (Guides to the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha) (1998)
  • Exodus (Epworth Commentaries) (2000)
  • Isaiah (Oxford Bible Commentary) (2001)
  • Six Minor Prophets Through the Centuries: Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi (Wiley Blackwell Bible Commentaries) (with Jin H Han) (2011)

References

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  1. ^ Richard Coggins (1981). Who's Who in the Bible. London: Batsford. p. Dust jacket. ISBN 0-7134-0144-3.