Joseph Barber Lightfoot was born in Liverpool on 13 April 1828, the son of John Jackson Lightfoot, an accountant from Yorkshire, and Ann Matilda née Barber from Newcastle upon Tyne. He was educated at Liverpool Royal Institution and then, from 1844, at King Edward VI's School Birmingham where he was much influenced by the teaching of Dr James Prince Lee, exulted in mathematics and classics, and was a friend of Edward Benson, later archbishop of Canterbury. He entered Trinity College Cambridge in 1847 where he was tutored by B.F. Westcott, later his successor as bishop of Durham. Lightfoot became a fellow there in 1852 and then tutor, lecturing on both classical and Christian literature, along with Greek philology. He was ordained deacon in 1854 and priest in 1858 and was appointed Hulsean Professor of Divinity in 1861. He combined his much-supported lectures with an authoritative role in university administration, and gained various royal appointments and honours elsewhere. Having declined the see of Lichfield in 1867, he became Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity in 1875, along with rector of Terrington St Clement, and a canon of St Paul's Cathedral in 1871 where his preaching soon gained a wide audience.
The revised version of the New Testament took up much of his time 1870-1880 and he also helped draw up the new statutes for Cambridge in 1881. He had by then been drawn away from Cambridge to become, after some persuasion as he feared for his scholarly work, bishop of Durham in 1879. He did much to update his diocese to reflect the great local growth of population of the nineteenth century, separating off the diocese of Newcastle in 1882, dividing up archdeaconries, rural deaneries and parishes, raising funds for many much needed church buildings and augmenting the numbers and training of his clergy. He presided at some 456 confirmation services and trained nearly 70 ordinands at his own expenses at Auckland Castle which he relished as his residence, enriching especially its chapel. He was much involved in Durham University affairs and encouraged the foundation of the university in his home town of Liverpool in 1880. Lightfoot died in December 1889 of congestion of the lungs and was buried at Auckland, much mourned as both a great theological scholar and an eminent bishop.
His will established the Lightfoot Fund for the Diocese of Durham to provide for church buildings and stipends in Durham. As in effect his literary executors, the trustees also published various works of his which helped to confirm his eminence as a scholar bishop. His own publications had included commentaries on various of St Paul's epistles, a defence of A fresh revision of the New Testament (1871), an account of the Coptic version of the New Testament in 1874, and articles on biblical and patristic criticism. He made a major contribution to the study of early post-biblical Christian literature and history which still commands respect with such as the text of the Epistle of Clement of Rome (1869), and editions of texts in Apostolic Fathers 2 vols. in 3 (1885). His strong historical interests were further reflected in the posthumously published Leaders in the Northern Church (1890). Quantities of his sermons, lectures, addresses, charges, articles and editions have also appeared in print. In his memory, Durham Cathedral chapter house was restored.
