Raymond Edward Brown was an American Catholic priest, a member of the Sulpician Fathers and a prominent biblical scholar. He was regarded as a specialist concerning the hypothetical 'Johannine community', which he speculated contributed to the authorship of the Gospel of John, and he also wrote influential studies on the birth and death of Jesus. Brown was professor emeritus at Union Theological Seminary (UTS) in New York, where he taught for 29 years. He was the first Catholic professor to gain tenure there, where he earned a reputation as a superior lecturer.

Raymond studied at the Catholic University of America, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1948 and a Master of Arts degree in 1949 as a Basselin scholar. In 1951, he joined the scholarly Society of Saint-Sulpice following his reception of a Bachelor in Sacred Theology degree from St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1953, he was ordained a Catholic priest for the Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida. He earned the degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology from St. Mary's Seminary in 1955 and a second doctorate in Semitic languages in 1958 from Johns Hopkins University, where one of his advisors was William F. Albright. (+info)

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