| Birth Date: | February 4, 1856 |
| Birth Place: | Indiana, Pennsylvania |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | Linguist and Presbyterian scholar |
| Education: | Princeton University |
| Alma Mater: | Humboldt University of Berlin (PhD) |
| Workplaces: | Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Princeton Theological Seminary Westminster Theological Seminary |
Robert Dick Wilson, PhD, DD (February 4, 1856 - October 11, 1930) was an American linguist and Presbyterian Old Testament scholar who devoted his life to prove the reliability of the Hebrew Bible. In his quest to determine the accuracy of the original manuscripts, Wilson learned 45 languages,[1] including Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, as well as all the languages into which the Scriptures had been translated up to 600 AD.[2]
Wilson was born in Indiana, Pennsylvania.[2] He proved himself an outstanding language student even as an undergraduate. While at Princeton University, he was able to read the New Testament in nine languages. He graduated from Princeton at the age of 20, later receiving a master's degree and doctorate before doing post-graduate work in Germany at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1883, Wilson became Professor of the Old Testament at Western Theological Seminary (later known as Pittsburgh Theological Seminary), where he had done some of his graduate studies. In 1900, he returned to Princeton as the William Henry Green Professor of Semitic Languages and Old Testament Criticism at Princeton Theological Seminary.
Throughout his career, he opposed the higher criticism, which held that the Bible was inaccurate on many points and not historically reliable. Professor Wilson wrote, "I have come to the conviction that no man knows enough to attack the veracity of the Old Testament. Every time when anyone has been able to get together enough documentary 'proofs' to undertake an investigation, the biblical facts in the original text have victoriously met the test" (quoted in R. Pache, The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture).
In the late 1920s, he left Princeton to teach at the new, conservative Westminster Theological Seminary.[2] Among his other works, Wilson contributed articles to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, a noted Bible reference of the early 20th century.