Each year on the last Saturday night in March, there's a special lecture at Miami University, given by some noted evangelical scholar in honor of Dr. Edwin Yamauchi, a longtime history professor at Miami who retired in 2006.
The first three Yamauchi lectures were given by Darrell Bock, Richard Hess, and Craig Evans. The 2009 speaker was Old Testament scholar Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.
Kaiser was a graduate school classmate of Dr. Yamauchi's. The two of them (along with Marvin Wilson, another rather well known evangelical scholar) were students of Cyrus Gordon at Brandeis in the 1960s. Kaiser retired a few years ago from his position as president of Gordon-Conwell Seminary, and he has been working on a number of writing projects since then.
Dr. Kaiser is, among other things, the editor of the NIV Archaeological Study Bible, and his lecture was an overview of biblical archaeology, highlighting some of the top discoveries from each era of biblical history. I'll post an article on the G&K website when I have a chance.
Kaiser prefaced his remarks with the story of how he persuaded a very wealthy (and extremely conservative) former student to provide $500,000 to fund the...
Since last May I've been "playing chicken" with Garrison Keillor (unbeknownst to him). As big a fan of his as I've been over the years, would I really be willing to lay down $40 to see his one man show in Oxford?
As March 18, the day of the performance, approached, the pressure mounted. What comments would he make about Miami University? What song would he have his audience sing? To find out, I would need to buy a ticket.
Finally, about 6 hours before the show, I flinched. I relented and purchased a ticket.
It turned out to be a great show, full of stories, sonnets, and songs. My favorite line was his reference to contemporary praise and worship anthems as "7/11 songs"---7 words repeated 11 times.
The monologue culminated with a retelling of the main plotline of his novel Pontoon.
I enjoyed that book, and it was fun to hear him rehearse the story personally.
I found out yesterday that there's a third campus lecture scheduled for 7:30 PM on April 2---a physicist talking about antimatter.
It will be interesting to see what happens in Oxford on April 2. When a lecture on antimatter coincides with two other lectures that matter, the results could be cataclysmic.
One of the great joys of an academic life is easy access to lots of great books.
In Ohio, all the college and university libraries belong to a statewide system called Ohiolink. Anyone with borrowing privileges at a member library has access to the whole system.
So when I hear about a great new book, chances are that it's in the system somewhere.
Some books I've been working on:
God's Strange Work: William Miller and the End of the Worldby David Rowe, the first academic biography of William Miller. After reading this excellent biography, I went back and checked out Rowe's dissertation on the Millerite movement in New York, which is also very good. I hope to complete an article on Miller over the next couple of months.
Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestineby Jonathan Schanzer. Schanzer has lectured at Miami a couple of times. He's quite an expert on the Middle East, and his book highlights one of the biggest problems in the Israeli-Palestine conflict: How can a peace be negotiated if there's no legitimate representative of the Palestines for the Israelis to negotiate with?
The Deniers by Lawrence Solomon. Solomon is a Canadian...
At Miami University spring break has come and gone. There are seven weeks of class left in the spring semester, then final exams.
One thing that I enjoy about this part of the academic year is that lots of campus lectures are typically scheduled for March and April.
This year is no exception. Garrison Keillor is coming this week, Salman Rushdie next week.
Sometimes two good lectures are scheduled at the same time. On April 2, there's going to be an AIA archaeology lecture in Oxford at 7:30 PM. At the same time, eminent Lincoln scholar Allen Guelzo will be speaking on the Hamilton campus about Lincoln as a philosopher. I"m leaning toward going to the Guelzo lecture. I've seen him speak on BookTV, and he's an excellent speaker.
But the lecture i'm most looking forward to is the one by Walter Kaiser, one of my favorite Bible scholars. He'll be giving a lecture called "Archaeology and the Bible: The Top 15 Finds" on March 28.
