James Rendel Harris (1852-1941), a biblical scholar and palaeographer, is mainly known for his works on early Christian documents. Born in Plymouth on 27 January 1852, he was educated in Plymouth and at Clare College, Cambridge, obtaining his MA in 1877.

From 1882 to 1885 he taught New Testament Greek at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1885 he was appointed professor of biblical languages at the Quaker university of Haverford College, Pennsylvania, a position which he held until 1892. In 1893 Harris returned to Cambridge as lecturer in palaeography.

In 1896 he spent six months in Turkey, organising relief work for the victims of the Armenian pogroms.

In 1903 Harris was invited to become professor of early Christian literature and New Testament exegesis at the University of Leiden , but he chose instead to become the first director of studies of Woodbrooke, a Quaker settlement for religious and social study in Selly Oak, Birmingham. The institute is now part of the University of Birmingham.

In 1912, during the Balkan War, he travelled to Turkey for a second time with the purpose of promoting the cause of the Armenians.

After the First World War Harris was appointed curator of Oriental manuscripts at the John Rylands Library, Manchester. He retired in 1925 and returned to Birmingham. He died in Selly Oak, Birmingham, on 1 March 1941.

Three years after his donation of manuscripts, in 1909, J Rendel Harris received an honorary doctorate from Leiden University (Wood 2004).