Edgar Johnson Goodspeed (b. 1871 in Quincy, Illinois – d.1962), the American scholar of Greek and the New Testament, was a liberal theologian who graduated from Denison University (where he also received a doctorate in Divinity, 1928) and the University of Chicago (Ph.D. 1898), where he taught for many years, and whose collection of New Testament manuscripts he enriched by his searches. The University's collection is now named in his honor.

He is widely remembered for his translations of the Bible: The New Testament: an American Translation (1923), and (with J. M. Powis-Smith) The Complete Bible" an American Translation (1939), the "Goodspeed Bible".

Aside from his scholarly work, he wrote many non-dogmatic introductions to biblical literature for the lay reader:

• The Story of the Bible and
• The Story of the Apocrypha,
• How to Read the Bible 1946
• The Twelve, The Story of Christ's Apostles
• Strange New Gospels, 1931
• How Came the Bible?, Abingdon–Cokesbury Press , c1940.
• A History of Early Christian Literature, University of Chicago Press , 1942
• Problems of New Testament Translation, 1945.
• The Life of Jesus for Young People
• Modern Apocrypha, The Beacon Press, 1956

External links

• Goodspeed, "The translatoes to thje Reader": Goodspeed's thesis on the Preface to the King James Version, 1611
• goodspeed and the goodspeed collection of mss at Chicago