Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Redpath, Henry Adeney
REDPATH, HENRY ADENEY (1848–1908), biblical scholar, born at Sydenham on 19 June 1848, was eldest son of Henry Syme Redpath, solicitor, of Sydenham, by his wife Harriet Adeney of Islington. In 1857 he entered Merchant Taylors' School, and won a scholarship at Queen's College, Oxford, in 1867, taking a second class in classical moderations in 1869 and a third class in literæ humaniores in 1871, graduating B.A. in 1871, and proceeding M.A. in 1874 and D.Litt. in 1901. Ordained deacon in 1872 and priest in 1874, Redpath, after being curate of Southam, near Rugby, and then of Luddesdown, near Gravesend, was successively vicar of Wolvercote, near Oxford (1880–3), rector of Holwell, Sherborne (1883–90), and vicar of Sparsholt, with Kingston Lisle, near Wantage (1890–8). In 1898. by an exchange, he became rector of St. Dunstan-in-the-East, City. Redpath was sub-warden of the Society of Sacred Study in the diocese of London, and examining chaplain to the Bishop of London (1905–8).
Redpath, who had learned Hebrew at Merchant Taylors' School, specialised, while a country parson, in the Greek of the Septuagint, completing and publishing the work which Edwin Hatch [q. v.] left unfinished: 'A Concordance to the Septuagint and other Greek Translations of the Old Testament' (Oxford, 1892-1906, 3 vols.). The value of his work was recognised both here and on the Continent (cf. Adolf Deissmann, The Philology of the Greek Bible, 1908, pp. 69-78). Redpath was Grinfield lecturer on the Septuagint at Oxford (1901–5), and shortly before his death designed a 'Dictionary of Patristic Greek.'
As a biblical scholar he was conservative. He expounded his opposition to the 'critical' view of the Old Testament in 'Modern Criticism and the Book of Genesis' (1905), published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. An abler and more constructive work was his painstaking 'Westminster Commentary' on Ezekiel, with introduction and notes (1907). He was also a contributor to Hastings's 'Dictionary of the Bible' (1904, 4 vols.) and to the 'Illustrated Bible Dictionary.'
Redpath died at Sydenham on 24 Sept. 1908, and was buried at Shottermill, Surrey. He married at Marsh Caundle, Dorsetshire, on 5 Oct. 1886, Catherine Helen, daughter of Henry Peter Auber of Marsh Court, Sherborne. She died at Shottermill, on 26 Aug. 1898, leaving one son.
[The Times, 25 Sept. 1908; Guardian, 30 Sept. Reed and 7 Oct. 1908; C. J. Robinson, Merchant Taylors' School list; private information.]