The Task of Our Association

Abstract

five objectives described by Professor Charles Foster Kent of Yale University at the second annual meeting of the original Midwest branch Chicago, June, 1919.1 These objectives were (1) to instructors together close fraternal relations, (2) to correlate results of experience, (3) to develop courses and methods, (4) to standardize Bible work secondary schools, and (5) to cooperate establishing new departments colleges and strengthening those now existence. It will be recognized that the purpose to bring instructors together close fraternal relations is basic to all the others listed. The rest are outgrowths of the first. A succession of leaders have reiterated the thesis that our Association is basically a fellowship of friends engaged a common undertaking. In her presidential address of 1931 Professor Laura H. Wild of Mount Holyoke compared the aims of NABI with those of SBL&E the following words: While we hope our contributions will always be based upon real scholarship, we were organized for mutual helpfulness as teachers and there is still a big part for us to play just that function, which no other organization undertakes.2 The twenty-fifth anniversary of NABI was celebrated at a meeting held at Union Theological Seminary, New York, December, 1934. recall vividly the warmth of good fellowship which pervaded this gathering. The outstanding feature of that celebration was a dinner the private dining room of the Union Refectory, followed by an historical account of the Association delivered by Professor Eliza H. Kendrick of Wellesley, which its turn was followed by several brief, informal reminiscences by older members. Dr. Ismar J. Peritz of Syracuse University, a very real sense founder both of NABI and JBR, described the way which the idea of an association and a journal came to him. The story is reported Professor Mould's history, but it is worth repeating here. I had a colleague, said Dr. Peritz, in the department of mathematics Syracuse University who was associated with an association of teachers of mathematics and who edited its journal, called The Mathematics Teacher. We often met and he would incessantly talk to me about what their association and its journal were doing. It was then that the thought came to me, 'Why might we not have an association of Bible teachers and a journal ?' With this thought came to the meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis at Columbia University 1909. .. .3 What happened at that meeting is well summarized Prof. Eliza H. Kendrick's historical account, Twenty Five Years of the National Society of Biblical Instructors, to use her own phraseology. She was apparently under the impression that the year was 1908 which the idea of the Association was conceived. However, there is no doubt she was describing the same meeting referred to by Dr. Peritz. quote her words: * Professor of Religion Boston University College of Liberal Arts since 1946 and 1953 President of the National Association of Biblical Instructors. This article is large part the presidential address delivered before the national meeting at Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, Illinois, December 27, 1953.