I consider it a great personal honor that I was asked to write this foreword for a friend of over forty years, Dale Allison. This is a friend with many different facets, beyond his acknowledged skill in biblical scholarship, to which this Festschrift attests. Uniting these multiple characteristics, it seems to me, is a person rooted in curiosity. Whether it concerns the historical context of early Christianity and Second Temple Judaism, or claims of paranormal experience and life after death, Dale has always been a person of relentless curiosity. In his early years, that curiosity far outstripped any desire for fame or fortune, as I witnessed him having to work a series of odd jobs, even while working on what has become the acclaimed International Critical Commentary on Matthew. How many customers at Eighth Day Books in Wichita, Kansas were aware that the salesperson beyond the desk was writing this massive commentary?
We were fortunate at Friends University to have Dale as an adjunct for many different courses (ethics, philosophy, even beginning writing) but, ironically, never New Testament because of a senior professor’s presence. Eventually, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary recognized Dale’s merit, and he spent many fruitful years there before his call to Princeton Theological Seminary. There, his curiosity is put to good use in a major research position where he issues new books regularly and provides an example of curiosity for a new crop of doctoral students.
As a scholar, Dale has demonstrated this curiosity as essential to the work of an historian of early Judaism and Christianity. Dale values the past and thus values tradition, as evident in his experiences with both the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Presbyterian Church. He has been foremost among contemporary scholars in emphasizing the importance of the history of exegesis, particularly patristics, for exegesis of the Bible. This reflects something, I think, in Dale’s character of curiosity, which is marked by his humility as an historian and his awareness of the limits of the historical-critical method.
Perhaps this value of history and tradition reflects (or is inspired by) the value Dale places on friends. A small number of us go back some forty years to a theological book club we organized while still in college. This was a group largely majoring in religion or English at local colleges. Already in those days, Dale’s intellect was intimidating. Even as an undergraduate, he was writing form-critical papers (some forty-plus pages) on the Gospel of Mark. Dale’s suggestions for our group led to important readings, and I remember distinctly our reading of Krister Stendahl’s essay, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” a foundational document for the “New Perspective” on Paul. So, in a way, even those of us who are not biblical scholars have not been surprised by such a movement. It was a fascinating group, and it still continues to meet annually, if possible, with Dale, Warren Farha, Robert Harrington, Michael Neth, Douglas Nigh, and this writer as the nucleus.
These friends have also been together in times of extreme tragedy. Shortly after I returned home from my graduate studies, a drunken driver killed Warren Farha’s wife, our friend, Barbara. For most of us, it was our introduction to death and loss. Dale’s endeavor to understand death had begun before that day, but it further accentuated his personal and intellectual meditation on that all-consuming topic. The result eventually was his very personal but erudite book Night Comes: Death, Imagination, and the Last Things (2016). Dale would have his own brush with death in a near fatal car accident while in the midst of his graduate studies. When I visited him at home, I knew he was mending well when I saw him sitting straight up, attentively reading C. H. Dodd’s Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel.
Dale has always valued where he came from—Wichita, Kansas. I seem to remember Dale telling us that in his first years as a student under the inimitable W. D. Davies at Duke, Davies would call on Dale as “the man from Kansas.” Dale has not been ashamed of his own traditions and family, not least of these, his late father, D. Clifford Allison Sr., who was a well-known attorney in Wichita. I have never known a person who was so close to his father. I am sure much of Dale’s initial return to Wichita after graduate studies stemmed from a desire to be near to his father, for whom he had such great respect and love.
The largest loyalty found in Dale’s life, of course, is for his family: his beloved wife Kristine, who has been courageous in her own serious health battles, and their children, Andrew, Emily, and John. It has been a great privilege and joy for me to be around to see these children grow into the mature adults that they are today.
Dale’s concern for issues like death and eschatology, of course, bring him into the realm of theology. As a Christian theologian, I have spent many delightful hours arguing with Dale on significant theological points (much of it eschatological). My own late mentor in New Testament studies, Ralph P. Martin, half-joked that he “trembled” whenever a theologian touched a biblical text. I suppose Dale has every right to feel the same thing. I appreciate, however, that he is one biblical scholar who is not afraid to talk about theology. This is true even though he emphasizes the historical method as much as any. I think his book on faith and history, The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus, should be required reading in every theological training program. As a theologian, I appreciate very much the balance he gives to the “received wisdom” on such issues as the kingdom of God (the kingdom of God is not just a “reign”; it is a “realm” that we “enter” [Matt 5:20]), and the apocalyptic “consistent eschatology” that is often forgotten today by popular writers who rush too quickly to a “realized eschatology.”
Dale’s example of meticulous research and a dedicated work ethic has always been a great example for me. I may never be able to match Dale’s scholarship, but his example certainly spurs me on to greater excellence. I cannot help but think of Dale’s interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount. The “perfect” example of Jesus is a motivation, even if we cannot reach it. Do not those whom we admire always inspire us? Dale would be the first to admit that he is no Jesus, but to me he is certainly an inspiration. Above all, however, I value him as a friend. “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” wrote Flannery O’Connor. So also is a friend like Dale Allison.