I first received the news of Howard Marshall, one of the most influential New Testament scholars in the world, passing away late Saturday night. Several blog posts are cropping up containing tributes and summaries of his life and work. In this blog post, I thought I might add a few personal notes about my experience of I. Howard Marshall
I came to the University of Aberdeen to do a PhD in New Testament knowing that he was still semi-active in the department as Prof. Emeritus. Over the last 3 and a half years he made many appearances at our NT seminar. He always came in with a smile on his face and was ready to contribute whenever anyone asked his opinion. It was great having him around. It was an interesting thing to interact with someone that had nothing to prove. So many of us “scholars” are interested in getting our own point across, offering our own opinion on a matter in order to get noticed or prove to ourselves (and everyone around us) that we are worthy to be in the room. Prof. Marshall was nothing like that. He would thoughtfully sit by and wait until someone asked his opinion, then quietly respond from a wealth of knowledge and a barely contained passion for God’s word.
At one of the first PhD seminars I attended, Prof. Marshall came with his wife Maureen (also a PhD in NT). We went around the room introducing ourselves and when it was his turn he said something humble about being retired. Maureen was next and, after introducing herself, told us that she had been very busy of late translating prominent NT works into Chinese. No one in the room even had to ask whose works she was referring to, you could tell by the smile on Howard’s face.
Some of my favorite moments in the NT seminar were when the discussion would become intense over some trivial but interesting matter, usually a question that involved the semantic background of a specific concept in the NT. All the big guns of the department would weigh in with differing opinions, often interrupting each other in a good natured but intense debate. Prof. Marshall would sit back, calm as could be, just taking in the surroundings, but when he spoke on a matter everyone stopped talking and listened intently. He was the kind of man that, when he spoke, it was thoughtful and succinct. He never talked just to hear his own voice, as many scholars do.
Even when a certain impetuous young scholar was brazen enough to push back at one of his points, Prof. Marshall was gracious enough to hear what this individual had to say and thoughtfully respond. I am certain, that this person felt valued and accepted by someone of Prof. Marshall’s status, a feeling that, in this cut-throat world of academia, is not very common.
That smile (the same one pictured at the top of this blog) is how I will remember him. It’s a strange thing to meet a legend. A lot of things go on in your head before you interact with someone of Howard Marshall’s academic reputation. You ask yourself questions like: Am I smart enough to interact with him on anything beyond small talk? Do I need to reference one of his books in our conversation in order to look well read? Is he going to ask me to parse a strange Greek word? All of these things just vanished when Howard stuck out his hand and smiled, welcoming me into a conversation and thoughtfully listening to my half-baked crazy ideas that might one day coalesce into a viable PhD thesis. Thanks Howard Marshall for being a great presence in the NT department here at the University of Aberdeen. You will be sorely missed and not quickly forgotten.
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