Evander Bradley McGilvaryPh.D. (July 19, 1864–September 11, 1953)[1] was an American philosophical scholar, born in
Bangkok to American
Presbyterian missionaries, the Rev.
Daniel McGilvary and Mrs. Sophia McGilvary.[2] He came to the
United States to study, graduating from
Davidson College (N.C.) in 1884[3] and from
Princeton University (
A.M.) in 1888. In 1891, he returned to northern
Thailand to join his parents in the
Laos Mission of the
Presbyterian Church USA. Although assigned to translate the Bible into northern Thai, McGilvary was soon embroiled in a denominational controversy over biblical inerrancy.[4][5] In the wake of the 1893 heresy trial of
Charles Augustus Briggs, whose views on Scripture he agreed with,[6] McGilvary resigned from the Laos Mission in 1894 and returned to the United States. For five years, he taught at the
University of California where he received the degree of
Ph.D. in 1897.
Evander Bradley McGilvary,
"Prolegomena to a Tentative Realism,"The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Vol. 4, No. 17 (Aug. 15, 1907), pp. 449-458.
^Karl Dahlfred, "Evander McGilvary in Northern Thailand: An Honest "Heretic" and the "Conservatives" Who Wanted to Keep Him," Journal of Presbyterian History 100, no. 1 (Spring / Summer 2022): 4-19.