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Professor I. Howard Marshall (Born 12 January 1934, Carlisle; died 12 December 2015, Aberdeen)
The Tyndale House and Fellowship particularly give thanks for Howard Marshall, whose name appears on about 1/6 of the pages of
our published history. I wonder whether anyone in the fellowship has had so many doctoral students, or has cared for so many so carefully. When Howard was chair of the Tyndale Fellowship his regular chairman’s reports were an inspiration to many. As an advisory editor for the Tyndale Bulletin, at least in my time as Editor, he reviewed more manuscripts than any other reviewer and did so with great speed and thoroughness. He also had a significant influence on me, as without his encouragement I might well not have applied for the position of Warden of Tyndale House. I’m sure that many others can testified to the way he guided and advised them. We are pleased that one of his former doctoral students, Craig
Blomberg, is currently here at Tyndale House and has been able to write a tribute. Tyndale House trustee and former colleague, Andrew Clarke, also shares his own words. Our thoughts and prayers are with Maureen, whom he married in 2011, and with all the extended family.
Peter J. Williams
Warden, Tyndale House
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The Press and Journal Family Announcement
Originally printed on December 15, 2015 in the Press And Journal.
MARSHALL
Peacefully at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, on Saturday, December 12, 2015, after a short illness, Ian Howard, faithful servant of the Lord. Much loved and sadly missed by his wife Maureen and all of his family. Funeral private but a service of thanksgiving will be held at Crown Terrace Methodist Church, on Saturday, January 16, 2016, at 2 p.m. to which all are invited. Family flowers only please, but donations may be given at the church door, in aid of a number of Christian charities.
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I. Howard Marshall (1934-2015): A Tribute, By Craig Blomberg
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Professor I. H. Marshall, or Howard as he was known to his friends, went to be with the Lord on Saturday, December 12, exactly one month shy of his 82nd birthday. He had only just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
I first met Howard in the autumn of 1979 as a fledgling Ph.D. student at the University of Aberdeen, where he taught his entire professorial career. He had already distinguished himself by publishing his own Aberdeen Ph.D. thesis, Kept by the Power of God: A Study of Perseverance and Falling Away a decade earlier, along with a significant work on Luke: Historian and Theologian, a major commentary on Luke, the volume on the Epistles of John in the NICNT series, helpful primers on the historical Jesus and New testament Christology, and he had edited an important collection of essays on New Testament interpretation. He would go on to author more than thirty books, including smallish commentaries on Acts, Philippians and 1 Peter, a mid-size work on 1-2 Thessalonians, and the major, revised ICC volume on the Pastoral Epistles. His New Testament Theology
won a gold medallion award from Christian publishers. His smaller books on Last Supper and Lord’s Supper, Biblical Inspiration, and Aspects of the Atonement all proved definitive for numerous readers on those topics. He was still hoping to complete the Two Horizons New Testament Commentary on Romans, when his health failed him.
Howard supervised an extraordinary number of Ph.D. students over the years, probably in the vicinity of seventy or eighty, and made himself available to still others if they were not getting enough feedback from his colleagues. Some of his best known graduates in the Western world include Grant Osborne, Bill Mounce, Darrell Bock, Eckhard Schnabel, Phil Towner, Joel Green, Clint Arnold, and Mark Strauss. But students came from every continent to work under him and have gone on to have equally significant, even if more unsung ministries, in other places. A 2010 anthology of articles on the theology of the Pastorals, Entrusted with the Gospel, contains Howard’s masterful overview of recent literature along with chapters written predominantly by Aberdeen Ph.D. graduates who worked with him on those epistles.
All of Howard’s students testified to his personal concern for them as individuals, as well as for their families, if they were married. He also knew how to have fun in social contexts. My favorite memory is of Joyce, his first wife, and him teaching us internationals how to dance the Scottish ceilidh. My second favorite memory is his reading from 2 Kings 4:38-41 during what was supposed to be a brief devotion before a potluck dinner for the students and their families. Fortunately, just as after Elisha worked his miracle, there was no ‘death in the pot’ that evening!
Many will remember Howard as a leading defender of evangelical Christianity in the academic world, even though he never adopted any “party line” unless he was thoroughly convinced by the evidence. In this respect, he was the successor to F. F. Bruce, even as he took leadership in many of the same organizations as Bruce had—especially the Tyndale Fellowship, the Fellowship of European Evangelical Theologians and the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas. Others will recall his longstanding commitment to Crown Terrace Methodist Church in Aberdeen and to the Wesleyan tradition more widely or to his championing of egalitarianism before it became more widespread. In a world in which some seem to equate Calvinism or complementarianism with true evangelicalism, he gave support to those who held differing views while maintaining an equally high view of Scripture.
People tend to say of most individuals who pass away at the age of 81 that they had a good, long life. That age, after all, is still just slightly above the average lifespan of men in the Western world. For those of us who knew and loved Howard it was much too short, for our sakes and for the kingdom, if not for his. We know he is enjoying his well-deserved heavenly reward, but we are the poorer for it here. Dance as many ceilidhs for us now, Howard, as you like and save us places for when it’s our turn to join you!
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Craig L. Blomberg, Distinguished Professor of New Testament, Denver Seminary
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I. Howard Marshall (1934-2015): A Tribute, By Andrew Clark
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A native Englishman, Howard was so long associated as a Grammar School pupil, University student and then Research Scholar in the city of Aberdeen that many have reasonably assumed him to have been adopted as a Scot. Certainly his 3 academic degrees at the University, his 35 years in the Department, and his 16 years as Emeritus Professor have created an inseparable identification between Howard and study of the New Testament at Aberdeen.
For a generation of prospective New Testament doctoral students, Howard was inevitably the principal attraction to apply to the University. However, many who respectfully requested to be supervised by him were firmly informed by him that they might be allocated to any of the team of New Testament staff. That said, the Aberdeen New Testament community was such that even those so disappointed soon found out that they had equal and direct access to Howard. This was not-least at the weekly lunch, which preceded the postgraduate New Testament seminar. Whether over a sandwich or during the seminar itself, Howard had no airs and graces, and categorically avoided unnecessary formality. Until his retirement in 1999, he would always make one or two thoughtful and courteous contributions to the academic discussion, and in so doing would neither dominate,
nor stifle debate. In his retirement he continued to attend these seminars, but all the more assiduously shunned the limelight, often only offering a thought if invited.
His small team of New Testament colleagues deeply appreciated his unflinching equity in the allocation of courses, supervisory and other responsibilities. Faithful in his collegiate responsibility, Howard neither jumped the queue to hand-pick the more highly prized tasks for himself, nor held back, hoping that others would in the meantime ‘volunteer’ to carry the more onerous burdens. Meticulously organised, embarrassingly efficient and notoriously un-wasteful of resources, Howard would respond to academic administrative tasks with enviable speed, quirkily distributing hand-written notes to colleagues on cut-up sheets of paper that would otherwise have been wastefully only printed single-sided, using a 2 inch pencil stub, which, like Elijah’s jar of flour and jug of oil, never seemed to run dry. In these, and so many other ways, his understanding of what it is to be a
disciple indelibly marked his life as an academic colleague.
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Dr Andrew D. Clarke
Emeritus Senior Lecturer, University of Aberdeen
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I. H. Marshall Scholarship Fund
If you would like to give a gift in memory of Professor Marshall, you may give to the I. H. Marshall Scholarship Fund, which will be used entirely to enable scholars from developing countries, so dear to Professor Marshall's heart, to attend Tyndale Fellowship Conferences. His life will be celebrated at the forthcoming Tyndale Fellowship Conference 4-7 July 2016.
For details of how to give click here.
U.S. tax payers can give efficiently here.
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Tyndale Bulletin Articles
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