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Harvey Cox

American theologian (born 1929)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ674993 ↗
Source-derived summary

Harvey Gallagher Cox Jr. (born May 19, 1929) is an American theologian and Baptist minister who served as the Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School, until his retirement in October 2009. Cox's research and teaching focus on theological developments in world Christianity, including liberation theology and the role of Christianity in Latin America.

Early life and education

Cox was born on May 19, 1929, in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, to Dorothea Cox and Harvey Gallagher. He was raised in Malvern, Pennsylvania. After a stint in the US Merchant Marine, Cox attended the University of Pennsylvania and graduated in 1951 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in history. He earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School in 1955, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in the history and philosophy of religion from Harvard University in 1963.

Career

Cox was ordained as an American Baptist minister in 1957, and started teaching as an assistant professor at the Andover Newton Theological School in Massachusetts. He then began teaching at Harvard Divinity School (HDS) in 1965 and in 1969 became a full professor. He was to become "the single most heeded professor in religion at Harvard."

Cox became widely known with the publication of The Secular City in 1965.

Editorial summary

“Harvey Cox” enters the record as american theologian (born 1929). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Harvey, American and theologian can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1929, 2009, 1951, 1955—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1929-05-19, 1929-03-19—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Harvey, American and theologian.
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Why this record matters

“Harvey Cox” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Harvey, American and theologian provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q674993. VIAF identifies the subject as 79123351. The Library of Congress control number is n50018778. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1929, 2009, 1951 and 1955.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Harvey Cox” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.