Researching Francis Watson

The son of a clergyman, Watson was born on a ship in the bay at Saint Helena. He grew up in India before his family moved to Tasmania. He moved to New Zealand, where he worked as a schoolteacher, becoming headmaster of the Campbell Street School in Palmerston North.

He played only a single match at first-class level, representing a combined "West Coast" team, which consisted of players from the western regions of New Zealand's North Island. In the match, against Wellington at the Basin Reserve in December 1879, Watson batted third in the West Coast first innings, scoring six runs. Although his team eventually the match by six wickets, he did not bat a second time.

In retirement, Watson settled in Te Puke, in the Bay of Plenty, dying there in October 1930. His older brother, George Watson, was also a cricketer, and played several matches for Canterbury.

Watson is well known as a critic of the so-called New Perspective on Paul (NPP). His criticisms of the NPP are all the more significant as he received a positive endorsement of James D.G. Dunn (a NPP proponent) for his doctoral study. After the latter endorsement, Watson explored in particular the social-scientific work of Klaus Berger which contributed to Watson changing his mind dramatically about some results of his unpublished thesis. The result was Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles: A Sociological Approach, which chronicles Watson's change of mind.

Watson's 2013 volume, Gospel Writing. A Canonical Approach, is his most voluminous study to date. Extensive critical review articles include those by Markus Bockmuehl and Richard Bauckham.

Ted Dorman suggests that for Watson, "hermeneutical sovereignty resides not in the text but in the subject matter to which it points" – namely, Jesus Christ.

Watson is the editor of New Testament Studies.

Watson's first expedition to 'Zambezia' was in 1873 and he subsequently made other journeys to the region, as trader and hunter. He formed a close friendship with Frederick Selous on these trips, and became a business partner of a certain George Westbeech. On an expedition to the Victoria Falls in 1891, he took the first known photographs of the falls and gorges. These photographs are now stored in the Zimbabwe State Archives.