Tyndale House. February 2010

Transcription

1 February 2010 Erasmus Scholars is pleased to announce the first award of bursaries from the Erasmus Fund. The Fund was set up to offer support to PhD students from the UK who are working in biblical studies. A wide variety of applications were received and bursaries have been given to the four promising scholars below who are carrying out research on the Song of Songs, Job, Hebrews, and Romans (as shown left to right). Highlights: DVD Resources 2 Mongolia to Cambridge 3 Special Guest 4 Open Chapel 4 Best Seller 5 In the News 6 Ros Clarke Tim Davy Lee Gatiss Will Timmins Tyndale in Italy 6 Planning the next steps We are still actively making plans for the future expansion of the library and for an increase to the ministry of. However, in our current position we are aware that some steps need to be taken before these aims can be realised. Central among these is the need to make the work of Tyndale House more widely known. We would like to increase considerably the number of people who receive our electronically (it is currently received by only about 2600 people), and also increase our Tyndale in the snow, a rare sight

2 Page 2 number of prayer supporters and financial supporters (the latter stand currently around 300). We are extremely grateful for all those who have kindly supported us, but in order to assist individuals from poorer countries to attend and to maximise on opportunities for global impact through biblical scholarship we believe that a much broader base of supporters is essential. We would be very happy to assist with any local efforts to raise awareness of the work here and to circulate our more widely. We are also very willing to consider sending Tyndale speakers to bring biblical scholarship to the wider public where local organisation, likely attendance, and the opportunity to make the work of the House known seem to merit it. Bible and Church The three illustrated talks given at the Bible and Church conference in London in June 2009 by Dr Peter Williams, Dr Dirk Jongkind and Dr Simon Gathercole are on sale on DVD. To purchase a copy please go to the Bible and Church website at If you do not use the internet please contact us at the address on the back page. On the Road Again There will be a Bible and Church day conference on Saturday 12th June 2010 at St Helen s Bishopsgate ( If you want to be part of this event please contact us at info@bibleandchurch.com The Jesus Accounts This thirty minute documentary attests to the historical reliability of the New Testament Gospels. Dr Peter Head, Sir Kirby Laing Senior Lecturer in NT at the University of Cambridge and Senior Research Fellow at Tyndale House, is one of the featured speakers. He is a much published author on the manuscripts of the New Testament: Peter Head A modern Greek New Testament is based not only on 500 years of study but on manuscripts that go back 1800 years to the second century. More Wildlife at Tyndale This hedgehog was foraging in the garden at Tyndale, getting ready to hibernate. These spiny creatures hide in woodpiles and under leaves so British gardeners have to take care when lighting a bonfire. Send us your news If you have spent time at Tyndale or have benefited from the work here, we would be very glad to hear from you. Why not write a brief line or two to Enid or Kylie at secretary@tyndale.cam.ac.uk?

3 Page 3 Mongolia to Cambridge Bayar Garamtseren is a Mongolian and has started his PhD at Cambridge University this year. His research focus is on the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint and other ancient versions, because his long-term goal is to translate the Bible from the original languages into Mongolian. He also will be involved in teaching and training other Mongolians Christians and leaders. He is here with his wife Yanjaa and the children, Misheel (7), Ninjin (6) and Taivan (2). He completed his M.Div. and Th.M. degrees at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Massachusetts. DO NOT MISS OUT! We plan to send a monthly news flash by ONLY. Please us at secretary@tyndale.cam.ac.uk to ensure that we have your up-to-date address. Forwarding our E-News is the quickest way to share our news with your friends Garden House Renovations Completed Staff News Tyndale Librarian Dr Elizabeth Magba is making a good recovery following orthopaedic surgery. We are delighted to welcome Matthew Baalham to the team in the role of Assistant Librarian. Looking especially charming in the snow before Christmas, the refurbished Garden House is now complete. It provides accommodation for a couple or an individual in an olde worlde setting with all mod cons. There are always more applications for accommodation than Tyndale can fulfil so this is a welcome addition to the facilities. Snow interrupted much-needed renovation work to the veranda of the main house. As with any property there are constant concerns over the fabric of, and these works have only been possible through the great generosity of donors. We are also pleased to welcome Kylie Thomas to the admin team. Kylie is working in the front office which means she is first person visitors meet when they arrive at Tyndale.

4 Page 4 Sharing Scholarship On 3rd November Tyndale paid host to around 20 guests who joined us for Open Chapel. As well as sharing in our regular short service, plus a library tour & lunch, our guests heard a talk from Dr David Instone-Brewer who shared his findings on The Earliest Church Teaching on Abortion. This can be viewed on the web at with a link to a more in-depth version at A Special Guest at Open Chapel It was a delight to welcome Mrs Peggy Chadwick to Tyndale House. Peggy is the widow of Henry Chadwick who is best known for his work on early Church history. In 1946 Henry and Peggy became the first residents in the newly-founded, Henry being given the task by IVP to start buying books to build up a library. Mrs Chadwick has not visited Tyndale since she moved out and was impressed by the size of the current collection. The Rt. Rev. John Taylor, who studied here in 1950, presented Mrs Chadwick, who had driven herself all the way from Oxford to join us, with a bouquet at Open Chapel and over lunch she shared stories of the old days. Return to Oz Kathleen and Stuart Rochester have been wonderful assets to the community but now leave for their native Australia, having almost simultaneously both completed PhDs in biblical studies. They are exploring opportunities for ministry overseas as Bible school teachers. Kathleen said that Tyndale is an ideal place to work because the sense of community adds so much Stuart & Kathleen Rochester to the excellent library. Stuart has been working in the library office whilst librarian Elizabeth Magba has been recuperating from surgery. Open Chapel Peggy Chadwick at Open Chapel You are invited to join with readers and staff in their regular act of worship at 10:30am. This will be followed by coffee, a chance to see the library, meet the staff, hear a short talk by one of the research staff, & round off the morning with lunch. DATES February 23rd 2010 Preacher: Dr Peter Head Talk by Dr Peter Williams on The Old Testament and Slavery May 11th 2010 If you wish to join us please RSVP to: Secretary@Tyndale.cam.ac.uk or call

5 Page 5 Ben Shin Boring Internet Researcher Ben Shin is a very interesting person but his work is boring. Born in Hong Kong and brought up in the UK, he has kept up bilingual skills by memorising Bible verses in Cantonese. He will soon be boring holes as a civil engineer for the water board, and he's been doing boring work for Tyndale. In a few spare weeks he volunteered to do Internet Research for us, hunting out individuals around the world for whom we don't have contact details, and who could benefit from Tyndale's resources. Sarah Clarke, another enthusiastic volunteer, has done work on updating our online periodicals. The work is hard because it is repetitive, but Ben and Sarah have the stamina to concentrate & get hugely valuable results! said David Instone-Brewer, our Technical Officer, and I do have some more interesting research tasks too he hinted. Earliest Hebrew Inscription Found? Scholars have been astounded by the discovery of a piece of pottery with writing in ink believed to date from the time of David. Found near to the Valley of Elah, the location of David's fight with Goliath, this would be the earliest inscription in Hebrew. The inscription is incomplete and hard to read and there is no agreement on its meaning. Some words are clear, such as king, judge, servant or serve/work, but they are not exclusively Hebrew. The shapes of the letters are irregular, so the piece may be the work of a learner. Whatever is concluded about it, it does attest writing, which implies reading, in a small place away from Jerusalem at a time for which there is very little evidence of those skills outside the Bible. Professor A.R. Millard Best Seller - Again The Lion Handbook to the Bible calls itself The best book to have next to the Bible and three million people own a copy. Most of it is written by scholars who have studied at Tyndale House, and they are helping to keep it up to date. The fourth edition came out in October, with many revisions in the light of new findings about history and the Bible text. The project started life as a way to use David Alexander's superb c o l l e c t i o n o f archaeological and travel photos, and succeeding editions updated these with new maps and photos. Mission to Greece STUDENT S COMMENT This place is like heaven to me. I am so happy to find it Mineko Honda Uchida, Japan Tyndale reader Myrto Theocharous was delighted to announce to the Tyndale community that she has been accepted as a missionary with AMG International, to work in Greece when she has completed her Cambridge PhD. Myrto plans to take up a teaching post at the Greek Bible College.

6 KLICE Making Waves Portable Tyndale Tools Tyndale web tools work much faster on a USB stick. You suddenly have instant access to full-text lexicons in Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, & Arabic, including the Englishman's Hebrew for non-linguists, which are faster to use than the paper versions. These are availible on request to regular donors. Details from Tania on <Finance@Tyndale.cam.ac.uk>. In December Dr Jonathan Chaplin, Director of the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, based at Tyndale House, caused consternation to a large number of secularist readers of The Guardian, one of Britain's leading newspapers. Dr Chaplin demonstrated some of the problems with the secularist desire to exclude religion from public life, and in doing so provoked the largest number of responses on the newspaper's website that it has known for this type of article. You can read the article here: Tyndale in Italy In December Peter Williams enjoyed tremendous Italian hospitality (four course meals for lunch and dinner!) as the main speaker at the 4th conference of the Gruppi Biblici Universitari in Pescara, Italy. Around 300 people, many of them involved in running the Christian Unions in Universities across Italy, came together for this conference on the coast of the Adriatic. At the conference the GBU released a book by Peter Williams, Primi Passi nello studio dell'antico Testamento First steps in the study of the Old Testament, a translation of an essay previously published by IVP. He has also been speaking at events in Dallas, Houston, Phoenix and the Los Angeles area. Peter Williams speaking in Pescara, Italy Excellence in biblical scholarship in service of the church 36 Selwyn Gardens CAMBRIDGE, CB3 9BA Tel: +44 (0) Fax: +44 (0) Secretary@Tyndale.cam.ac.uk Donations to may be posted, or made online at: Tax-deductible donations in US dollars may be sent to: American Friends of Cambridge, Inc PO Box 4920, Orlando, FL