Bernhard Word Anderson is an American United Methodist pastor and one of the best known Old Testament scholars of the twentieth century.

Born in Dover, Missouri, Anderson earned degrees from the College of the Pacific and Pacific School of Religion. In 1939, he was ordained to the ministry of the (then) Methodist Church. He served Methodist churches in California, and later Congregational churches in both Connecticut and New York.

In 1945 he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Yale, where he specialized in Old Testament studies. He holds honorary degrees from the Pacific School of Religion, the University of the Pacific, and Colgate University.

As a professor, he served Colgate University in New York, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Colgate Rochester Divinity School, Drew University, (where he served as Dean of the Theological School for nine years), and finally as a Professor of Old Testament Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he is currently Professor of Old Testament Theology Emeritus.

Selected works

• Contours of Old Testament Theology (ISBN 0800630742)
• Creation in the Old Testament (editor) (ISBN 0800617681)
• Creation Versus Chaos: The Reinterpretation of Mythical Symbolism in the Bible (ISBN 159752042X)
• Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak for Us Today (ISBN 0664258328)
• Understanding the Old Testament (ISBN 0139483993)
• The Unfolding Drama of the Bible (ISBN 0800620984)

Biblical scholars | Methodist clergy | American clergy