IVP - Addenda & Errata - They Won't Forgive Us

They Won't Forgive Us

Jim Davila’s Palaeojudaica is a regular blog stop for me. Recently he pointed to this article in Haaretz on the slow demise of classical studies at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University.

Davila draws our attention to the following piece of the article:

Department head Prof. David Schaps, who specializes in Greek and Roman history, recalls another period when classical culture was neglected. "We call it the Dark Ages. It was only 1,000 years later that the value of that knowledge was recognized again, and not all of it could be reconstructed," he said. "The same thing could happen to us. There are areas that don't interest our generation, and we are allowing them to disappear. They might interest people in the future, and they won't forgive us."

This reminded me of F. F. Bruce’s dedication of his book The Canon of Scripture (IVP, 1988):

TO THE DEPARTMENTS
OF HUMANITY AND GREEK
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN
FOUNDED 1497
AXED 1987
WITH GRATITUDE FOR THE PAST
AND WITH HOPE
OF THEIR EARLY AND VIGOROUS RESURRECTION

Think about it.

And on analogous track of things old and valuable, I wonder if future generations of Christians will forgive us if we neglect to pass on our rich legacy of hymnody in favor of "praise songs." But now I'm meddling....

Bruce, by the way, had earned an M.A. under Alexander Souter (who also wrote an important book on NT canon, The Text and Canon of the New Testament) at Aberdeen and was later, in 1957, awarded an honorary D.D. from Aberdeen. You can learn more of Bruce’s distinguished career in the article on “Bruce, F. F.” (written by Ward Gasque, one his students) in our newly released Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters, edited by Donald K. McKim.

Posted by Dan Reid at January 16, 2008 10:28 AM