A eulogy

17 April 2009

I learned this week that Thomas O. Lambdin is dead. My classmates chuckled when the Harvard grad, who was lecturing on the Blessed BDB, told us that this man, the source of all suffering and tribulation in our lives over the past two semesters, had in fact moved on to the other side.

I was shocked. For a moment, I was afraid I might start crying because somehow, somewhere between stewing over his lists of vocabulary and grumbling over his complex translation homework, I became very attached to the author of my text book: Introduction to Biblical Hebrew.

Thomas O Lambdin is a man of mystery. His Wikipedia article is two lines long-- brevity that perhaps nods to the famous brevity of his Hebrew Grammar. He taught at Harvard University, but besides a few papers and my shabby green textbook, paperback cover peeling away from wrinkled and well thumbed pages, there is little left behind to remind the world of this brilliant Hebrew Scholar.

So this is my tribute to the man who was my Virgil through Hebrew Grammar (is it a sin to cross dead language metaphors thus?): my guide through the forms and tenses of Biblical Writ.

Dr. Lambdin, you will be dearly missed.