Westar Institute News
Santa Rosa, California
March 2006 Westar mourns loss of Fellow, Daryl Schmidt
Westar Fellow, Daryl D. Schmidt, died on March 21, 2006, at Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth,
Texas, after a very brief battle with cancer. A popular presenter on the Jesus Seminar on the Road circuit, he was a General Editor of Westar's Scholars Version
Translation Committee and coordinator for the translation of the Pauline letters, as well as editor of Westar's academic journal, Forum . He was also a
member and prime mover of the Steering Committee for the new Jesus Seminar on Christian Origins launched in March 2006.Daryl Schmidt earned a B.A. in history in 1966 at Bethel College in North
Newton, Kansas. He was awarded an M.Div. from Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana, in 1970, and he earned a Ph.D. in Biblical
Studies from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, in 1979. Since 1979, Daryl had taught in the Department of Religion at Texas Christian
University where he was the John F. Weatherly Professor of New Testament. He served as Chair of the Department of Religion from 1999–2005, and he
chaired the TCU Faculty Senate from 1983–1989. In 1991–1993, he served as Visiting Professor of New Testament at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California.
Daryl was the author of two books, The Gospel of Mark, which appeared in 1991, and Hellenistic Greek Grammar and Noam Chomsky, published in
1981. His awards and honors include the Faculty Award for Outstanding Involvement with Student Development, Texas Christian University, 1987, and
a Junior Scholar Research Award, Southwest Commission on Religious Studies in 1986. Since becoming a Fellow in 1988, Daryl had played an active role in Westar's
operations and had spent many summers in residence in Santa Rosa. He is survived by his wife Judy Dodd of Fort Worth, his father, Arnold Schmidt of
Parker, SD, a sister Jeanine Schmidt Spomer of Worthington, MN, and a brother, Delwin Schmidt of Parker, SD. Memorials may be sent to the Westar
Institute or to the National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance. We will miss him.
Jesus Seminar on Christian Origins
With the Seminar on Christian Origins, the Jesus Seminar returns to its roots: asking basic questions about Christian origins in an open, public forum, as a
way of airing the contributions of critical scholarship to an interested lay audience. The Seminar began in 1985 with the question "What did Jesus say
and do?" Now it continues with the question "How did Christianity begin?" The new Seminar on Christian Origins proposes to approach the topic by
"place," rather than by trajectory or school of thought, or text by text. It will focus its efforts one place at a time beginning, in Fall 2006, with Thessalonica.
The plan is simple. First, Fellows will try to describe a particular place as thoroughly as possible within a prescribed time frame, say 50 B.C.E. to 150
C.E., using all the resources at its disposal: archaeology, epigraphy, the ancient historians, cultural anthropology, etc. Second, they will create an inventory of
early Christian texts and traditions that might have received a hearing in that place and plot them over time. Finally, they will put those texts and traditions,
and the cultural memory they represent, in place and ask the question: how did Christianity begin in this place? What did it look like: its rituals, its practices, its
animating ideas, and how did it develop over time? As the seminar investigates various places of early Christian activity, it will have occasion to explore some
of the great questions of Christian origins, such as the role played by women, the social location of early Christians, or conflict with the Empire. It will ask
about the development of certain ideas, myths of origin, or the appearance of key figures, like James or Paul. As one place after another is explored Fellows
will be able to trace networks and patterns, sense conflicts, assess differences and similarities. Eventually all the questions will come under consideration, but
anchored in the particularity of place. After Thessalonica, the list includes Galilee, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Edessa, Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome.
Stephen J. Patterson of Eden Theological Seminary will chair the steering committee whose members include Arthur Dewey, Joanna Dewey, John Kloppenborg and Bernard Brandon Scott. November 2005 News Copyright |
