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Earle Ellis, 1926-2010

Obituary

E. Earle Ellis, Research Professor of Theology Emeritus at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and the founder of the Institute for Biblical Research, passed away on March 2.

His name may not be well known in the UK, except perhaps for his name on the cover of a few commentaries, but Earle was an outstanding Christian biblical scholar who fought for his faith within an often hostile academic arena.

I got to know Earle when he came to stay each summer with my pastor in Wimbledon to continue his research at the British Library, and also visited him in Fort Worth. I once took this smartly dressed, softly spoken aged professor to an open-air concert in North London, where we ate a picnic sitting on the grass. During a brief lull, he took out some tracts, and walked among the crowd, engaging people in conversation about the gospel.

Ellis was born in Fort Lauderdale. He served in the US Army during World War II. After being discharged, he entered the University of Virginia with the intention to become a lawyer. His desire for law, however, evaporated as his thirst for the Scripture grew stronger. This thirst eventually led him first to Faith Seminary in Wilmington, Delaware, then to the Wheaton College Graduate School, where he earned both MA and BD degrees (1953), and then to the University of Edinburgh, where he earned a PhD degree in just two years (1955). He did postdoctoral studies at major universities in Europe — TŸbingen, Gšttingen, Marburg, and Basel — and spent every summer in England doing research for the last 20 or so years. Ellis served at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1985 until his death, first as Research Professor of Theology (until 1998) and then as Research Professor of Theology Emeritus (until his death).

Through his meticulous writings, Ellis showed how the New Testament writers used the Old Testament and various preformed traditions, and he provided a fresh perspective on the history of early Christianity and also on the making of the New Testament documents. Furthermore, he demonstrated the importance of anthropology and how it affects other areas of theology, such as Christology, soteriology, and eschatology. Ellis was a strong proponent of the monistic view of humanity and understood humans as existing individually and corporately. This particular anthropology provided a basic framework for his interpretation and theology.

During his funeral service, Paul Wolfe, the executor of Ellis’s estate, mentioned two items that he had discovered in Ellis’s office. The first was Ellis’s long prayer list. It included the names of many students, colleagues, family members and friends. It also had a name, ‘Samuel — a shoeshine boy’, whom Ellis met at an airport. He was a man of prayer. The second item that caught Wolfe’s attention was many receipts for giving.

Tim Thornborough