Skip to main content

John Murray Collections (#030, 010, 033, and 041)

 Collection
Identifier: MC-010,030,033,041

Content Description

Unfortunately for scholars of John Murray and his contribution to Reformed theology, when Murray retired from WTS in 1966, he felt that his published works constituted the totality of his thoughts and opinions—and so he made a bonfire of his manuscript papers(!) Only a few Murray papers, gathered by Stanley Hagberg, Peter Smith, Elsie Palmer, and Whitman (unknown forename) have survived. Their collections are held in the Special Collections of Westminster Theological Seminary. Anyone who is familiar with John Murray and his career as a Reformed theologian and seminary professor will immediately recognize the contents of his papers. His papers contain materials from his days at Princeton Theological Seminary, both as a student and the one year as a professor there before moving to Westminster Theological Seminary. These include such things as lecture notes, class research papers, and syllabi. Unfortunately, this collection contains almost no correspondence. The one item of correspondence in this collection is a letter from J. Oliver Buswell, dated February 23, 1937, and concerns Murray’s review of Buswell’s booklet, Unfulfilled Prophecies. As a devoted member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Murray took an active part in its administration. He attended the OPC General Assembly from 1942 and 1946. He may very well have attended the GA in other years, but these are the only two years for which we still have documentation of Murray’s attendance. Living and working in the Philadelphia area, Murray’s church-of-membership was in the Presbytery of Philadelphia, and it is evident that he served on the Committee of Local Evangelism in that Presbytery. As a seminarian and professor of theology, it is only natural that Murray would have accumulated literary materials from, or about other theologians, and a series in this collection, entitled “Scholars and Associates” contains such materials. The extant materials in the Hagberg-Murray collection from Scholars and Associates were from Gordon H. Clark, Floyd Hamilton, and L. M. Moore. Murray also collected materials concerning various subjects that were important to Reformed theologians in the mid-twentieth century. In this collection, these consist of papers on the Auburn Affirmation (including material about modernism in the Presbyterian Church), a Greek word-study on the word “begotten,” and the Ministers Letter Exchange in 1945. In any manuscript collection, nothing contains the intellectual indicators more than those papers written by the subject, himself. The last series in this collection contains the writings of John Murray. These include a wide range of materials, and the nature of these papers is rather fluid. In this collection, Murray’s writings are identified as “essays.” These may have been intended to be articles for journals, or magazines, or as sermons, or class lecture notes, or as chapters in books or anthologies. An essay originally intended for one purpose may have been adapted for another at a late time. In this collection, they are identified by title and arranged in alphabetical order.

Dates

  • Creation: 1927 - 1966

Creator

Restrictions/Access Note

Restrictions may apply at the discretion of library staff.

Conditions Governing Use

These collections are available to scholars and researchers who have registered with Westminster Theological Seminary Montgomery Library. There may be materials in that are copyrighted. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine the copyright status of materials in the collection to comply with copyright law.

Biographical / Historical

John Murray was born in Ross-shire, Scotland on October 14, 1898. During World War I, he served in the famed “Black Watch” regiment, and it was during his combat service that he lost the sight of his right eye. After his release from the army, he matriculated through the University of Glasgow, studying theology. It was during his studies that he aligned with the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. After graduation, he applied for and was accepted at Princeton Theological Seminary. While at Princeton, Murray studied under doctors C. W. Hodge, Jr., J. Gresham Machen and Geerhardus Vos. These theologians would continue to have a profound influence on his theology and his later career. Murray taught at Princeton for a year, but when a new and more conservative Presbyterian seminary was established in Philadelphia, in 1929, Murray accepted an offer from Dr. Machen for a faculty position there, teaching systematic theology. That new seminary was Westminster Theological Seminary, and Murray taught there from 1930 until his retirement in 1966. During his thirty-six years at WTS, Dr. Murray imparted his exemplary academic standards to hundreds of students—students who would go on to preach the Gospel to tens of thousands of Christians. Following his retirement, Murray returned to his homeland and connected with the Free Church of Scotland. At the age of 69, Murray (finally) married, taking Valeria Knowlton as his wife. Murray died in 1975 at the age of seventy-six.

Extent

Various Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Related Materials

Collection 030, The Hagberg-Murray Collection -- Collection 010, The Palmer-Murray Collection -- Collection 033, The Smith-Murray Collection -- Collection 041, The Whitman-Murray Collection.

Title
Guide to the John Murray Collections
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Repository Details

Part of the Montgomery Library Archives of Westminster Theological Seminary Repository

Contact:
Westminster Theological Seminary
Montgomery Library
2960 West Church Rd.
Glenside PA 19038 United States