John Pairman Brown ’44


John Pairman Brown ’44 died on April 5 in Berkeley, California. His father, Bancroft Brown, was a math professor at Dartmouth, so “Jock” was a Hanover boy, and said, “Going to college just seemed a continuation of what had gone before.” The Rev. Brown was educated at Dartmouth, Harvard and Union Theological Seminary. A classical and biblical scholar with a specialty in Old Testament and Greek etymology, he had an encyclopedic knowledge of all of the ancient languages and most of the modern ones. He was a professor of classics at the American University of Beirut and Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley. An ardent activist for peace, the Rev. Brown regularly put himself in harm’s way in rallies for peace. He was the author of numerous scholarly books, including three large volumes of Israel and Hellas, as well as a contributor to many other publications on all manner of topics, including the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Emily, his wife of 56 years, survives him, as do four children and numerous grandchildren.