About Robert L. Lindsey, Ph.D. (1917-1995) and his work . . .No one loved the land of the Bible and the people of the land, both Jews and Arabs, more than Bob Lindsey. He first came to the land of Palestine in 1939 and stayed for a year and a half to study Hebrew while living with a Jewish family in Jerusalem. On the way back to the U.S. he traveled through the Orient and , in Japan, met the young woman who would become his wife. Margaret Lutz was returning to college after visiting her parents who were serving in Korea and had booked passage on the same ship as Bob. After completing seminary he returned to the Holyland in 1945 with his wife and two small children to become pastor of the Narkis Street Baptist Congregation in Jerusalem. He functioned in many different capacities while serving in Israel until his retirement in 1987 but he is perhaps best remember by more people in his role as senior pastor of the church in Jerusalem. Dr. Bob Lindsey was a world class scholar --- he earned his BA from the University of Oklahoma, Th.M. from Princeton Theological Seminary, and Th.M. and Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky --- but above all he had a pastor's heart. Except for a few brief periods through the years, the time for his scholarly pursuits was made up of a few hours here and a few hours there or a short "vacation" at the little cottage in Galilee away from telephone and pastoral duties. Bob's primary scholarly interest was the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. His concern for publishing the life and words of Jesus in modern Hebrew led him to translate the Gospel of Mark from Greek into modern Hebrew. In a time when many scholars were doubting the authenticity of the words attributed to Jesus in the Gospels, Bob was struck by the fact that when the sayings of Jesus in Greek were translated into Hebrew, what had been poor Greek syntax suddenly became good Hebrew. In addition, words and phrases that are meaningless in Greek (and English) were perfectly acceptable Hebrew idioms, many of which are used today in modern Israel. For example, Jesus' reference to a person having a "good eye" or a "bad eye" has spawned numerous sermons through the centuries --- good sermons with good morals but which totally miss the point. In Hebrew idiom, good eye simply means "generous" and bad eye means "stingy." Even today in Israel when someone is collecting for the heart association or whatever, the person soliciting may say, "Give with a good eye," that is, "Give generously." Thus, what we have preserved in our Synoptic Gospels in their present form is not the result of oral tradition passed along and written down by a Gentile church long after the time of Jesus but a slavishly literal translation from a Hebrew original into Greek thereby preserving the original Hebrew syntax and idiom. While each gospel writer selects material from his sources and arranges the material in his own way, we can rejoice in the confirmation of the authenticity of the words of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels. Dr. Lindsey's scholarly pursuits are closely tied to his association with his longtime associate and dear friend Professor David Flusser, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Religion at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Through the years, the association of "Lindsey" and "Flusser" (as they were known to each other) in a series of seminars relating to the Synoptic Gospels resulted in the formation of a consortium of Christian and Jewish scholars known as the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research. These scholars are examining the Synoptic Gospels within the context of the language and culture in which Jesus lived. The basis thrust of their endeavor is the direct result of the lifetime of biblical research of Robert L. Lindsey, Ph.D. Their work confirms that Jesus was a Jewish sage who taught in Hebrew and used uniquely Rabbinic teaching methods (which in no way affects our Christian theological view of Jesus but does assist us in understanding and interpreting his words.) While many scholars believe that the present Gospels are the result of an oral tradition of the life and sayings of Jesus, modified for its own purpose by a Greek speaking Gentile church, and finally written down in Greek, the scholars of the Jerusalem School have arrived at a far different conclusion. They believe the first narrative of Jesus' life was written in Hebrew, and that much of it can be recovered from the Greek texts of the Synoptic Gospels. The School's central objective is to reconstruct as much as possible of that conjectured Hebrew narrative. This is an attempt to recover a lost Jewish document from the Second Temple period, a Hebrew scroll which, like so much Jewish literature of the period, has been preserved only in Greek. Therefore, their method involves translating the Synoptic Gospels from Greek into Hebrew and then studying the Hebrew text. This differs from the majority of New Testament research which considers only the Greek text, thereby failing to be aware of the Hebrew idioms or to benefit from a Hebraic perspective. Both Christian and Jewish scholars within the Jerusalem School benefit from their joint effort. Most Christian theology has been developed from a non-Jewish Greek perspective. As Christians, we are therefore trying to understand and interpret Jewish documents written by Jews for a Jewish audience (in the case of the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament) and documents written largely if not entirely by Jews from a Hebraic perspective (in the case of the New Testament --- even in the case of Paul when writing to mixed or largely Gentile congregations.) Therefore, the Jewish scholars offer the enlightenment of a Hebraic perspective. So why are the Jewish scholars interested in the Synoptic Gospels? They view then as important Jewish historical records with some information about the period that occurs in no other source to date. Thus, while the members of the Jerusalem School do not agree with each other about how to interpret the theological significance of their findings with regard to the life and words of Jesus, they do agree on the importance of reliable research methodology aimed at obtaining trustworthy historical evidence for the meaning of Jesus' words. Dr. Bob Lindsey's impressive list of publications include, in addition to numerous monographs and journal articles, the three-volume Greek Synoptic Concordance, and his books: A Hebrew Translation of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus Rabbi and Lord, and The Jesus Sources. Dr. Lindsey, in his association with the Jerusalem School, was involved with a number of very important projects that are still in progress:
David Bivin, publisher of Jerusalem Perspective, a quarterly journal featuring the work of members of the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research, heads the above listed projects in Israel. In the U.S., HaKesher, Inc., founded in 1987 by Dr. Lindsey's daughter and son-in-law (Lenore and Ken Mullican) is dedicated to promoting the research of Dr. Lindsey and other members of the Jerusalem School. HaKesher distributes Dr. Lindsey's books, and his seminar and sermon tapes. (HaKesher is in the process of editing and making available sermon tapes of Dr. Lindsey's last seven years as pastor in Jerusalem.) They are an extremely valuable source of teaching from a Hebraic perspective and embody the culmination of a lifetime of biblical research and living in the land of the Bible by Dr. Lindsey. In addition, HaKesher has established the Robert and Margaret Lindsey Biblical Research Library. It is currently housed at the HaKesher offices and is a limited access research library. This library consists largely of books collected by Dr. Lindsey through the years and used by him in his research. To this collection, HaKesher continues to add appropriately significant volumes. For those who wish to make a contribution to the memory of Dr. Lindsey in gratitude for what his life and work means to them, we offer the opportunity to contribute financially to the Robert L. Lindsey Biblical Research Fund or to the Robert and Margaret Lindsey Biblical Research Library. This fund is administered by HaKesher, Inc., which is designated a 501(3)c organization and therefore authorized to receive tax-deductible contributions. The contributions received will be used to further the work of Dr. Lindsey by HaKesher in the U.S. and by the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research in Israel. Checks or money orders should be made payable to HaKesher, Inc. and may be mailed to the address below: HaKesher, Inc. |