Norman Karol Gottwald (October 27, 1926 – March 11, 2022) was a 20th-century American Marxist, political activist, and Old Testament scholar who pioneered the use of social theory and method in biblical studies.

Education

Gottwald received an A.B. and Th.B. from

Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary Palmer Theological Seminary is a Baptist seminary in St. Davids. It is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA. It was founded in 1925 as Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Its parent institution is Eastern University. History The ...

(1949), an M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary (1951), and a doctorate in biblical literature from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

(1953).

Academic career

Gottwald taught at several renowned institutions over the course of his career, including Columbia University (1953-1955), the

Andover Newton Theological School Andover Newton Theological School (ANTS) was a graduate school and seminary in Newton, Massachusetts. Affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA and the United Church of Christ. It was the product of a merger between Andover Theological ...

(1955-1965) and the Berkeley Baptist Divinity School (later American Baptist Seminary of the West) from 1965 to 1973. From 1966 to 1982, he taught at the

Graduate Theological Union The Graduate Theological Union (GTU) is a consortium of eight private independent American theological schools and eleven centers and affiliates. Seven of the theological schools are located in Berkeley, California. The GTU was founded in 1962 ...

. From 1980 to 1994, he taught at the

New York Theological Seminary The New York Theological Seminary (NYTS) is a private non-denominational Christian seminary in New York City. It was founded in 1900 as the Bible Teacher's College. In 2019, Rev. LaKeesha Walrond was appointed as the first woman and the first Af ...

. He also served as adjunct professor at the

Pacific School of Religion The Pacific School of Religion (PSR) is a private Protestant seminary in Berkeley, California. It maintains covenantal relationships with the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, and the Disciples of Christ, ensuring the schoo ...

in San Francisco. "Gottwald's greatest contribution to biblical scholarship is his use of anthropology and sociology in biblical studies." Gottwald was an ordained minister of

American Baptist Churches USA The American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA) is a mainline/evangelical Baptist Christian denomination within the United States. The denomination maintains headquarters in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The organization is usually considered mainli ...

and as such "...a strong advocate of popular biblical study committed to social change."

Fellowships, grants, honors, awards

* 1960: Faculty Research Scholarship from the American Association of Theological Schools * 1960:

Fulbright The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

Research Scholarship at

Hebrew University The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

(Jerusalem) * 1968: Post-Doctorate Fellowship at Hebrew Union College Biblical and Archaeological School (Jerusalem) * 1970: Faculty Research Scholarship from the American Association of Theological Schools * 1996: Honorary Doctorate from the

University of Sheffield , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...

Students

* Claude Mariottini, professor of Old Testament, Northern Baptist Seminary

Personal life

Gottwald was born on October 27, 1926, in Chicago to Norman Karl and Carol (Copeland) Gottwald. Gottwald married Laura; they had two children. In 1953, Gottwald wrote a letter to ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

'' magazine in response to the essay "Is Academic Freedom in Danger?" by

Whittaker Chambers Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938), ...

, stating:

Sirs:Mr. Chambers' article is timely and soberly written. We must all be thanks for his contribution. But with all their grim necessity, such investigations arouse and feed upon suspicion and mistrust; they inflame passion and prejudice. A little more "liberal neurosis" in Germany might have checked Nazism at its inception. The liberal must warn that in the struggle for survival we may sell our soul.Certainly, we must uncover and prosecute those who intend the violent overthrow of our government. But we must resist with all our strength the self-righteousness and assumed importance, the political opportunism of those who would have us believe these skirmishes constitute the real war against Communism. The "liberal neurosis" is trying to lift the vision of shortsighted men who have little or no understanding of the conflict of ideas, of why men become Communists, why they are disillusioned, and how we may enlist these factors in the cause of freedom.Norman K. Gottwald
New York, NY

Gottwald's was the final letter published by the magazine and seemed to make the most effort to resolve conflicting views in the foregoing letters. Gottwald died March 11, 2022 .

Works

Gottwald's most influential work is ''The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 B.C.E.'' (1979). In it, he employed a sociological approach to the study of early

Israelite The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan. The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...

religion and politics. He proposed Israelites emerged as local Canaanite peasants sought to overthrow the corrupt regimes they lived in. Their action was fueled by a liberating faith in the deity

Yahweh Yahweh *''Yahwe'', was the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age if not somewhat earlier, and in the oldest biblical literature he posse ...

.p.53–54
They dislocated to the previously unsettled

Judea Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Hebrew language#Modern Hebrew, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian vocalization, Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous L ...

n hills in order to form a more equal community. These ideals are reflected in the legendary stories of the

Pentateuch The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the sa ...

Joshua Joshua () or Yehoshua ( ''Yəhōšuaʿ'', Tiberian: ''Yŏhōšuaʿ,'' lit. 'Yahweh is salvation') ''Yēšūaʿ''; syr, ܝܫܘܥ ܒܪ ܢܘܢ ''Yəšūʿ bar Nōn''; el, Ἰησοῦς, ar , يُوشَعُ ٱبْنُ نُونٍ '' Yūšaʿ ...

and

Judges A judge is an official who presides over a court. Judge or Judges may also refer to: Roles *Judge, an alternative name for an adjudicator in a competition in theatre, music, sport, etc. *Judge, an alternative name/aviator call sign for a membe ...

Authored books

*''Studies in the Book of Lamentations''. Studies in Biblical Theology 14. London: SCM, 1954. Reprinted, Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010. (orig. PhD Thesis, Columbia University, 1953) *''A Light to the Nations: An Introduction to the Old Testament''. New York: Harper, 1959. Reprinted, Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2009. *''All the Kingdoms of the Earth: Israelite Prophecy and International Relations in the Ancient Near East''. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. Reprinted, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007. *''The Church Unbound: A Human Church in a Human World''. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967. *''The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 B.C.E.''. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1979. *''The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-literary Introduction''. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985. *''The Hebrew Bible in Its Social World and in Ours''. SBL Semeia Studies. Atlanta: Scholars, 1993. *with Laura Lagerquist-Gottwald. ''Pentecost 3''. Proclamation 6: Interpreting the Lessons of the Church Year. Series B. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996. *''The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 B.C.E.''. Reprinted, with a new Preface. Biblical Seminar 66. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999. *''The Politics of Ancient Israel''. Library of Ancient Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001. *''The Hebrew Bible: A Brief Socio-literary Introduction''. Philadelphia: Fortress, 2008. *''Social Justice and the Hebrew Bible''. Vol. 1. Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice Series. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016. *''Social Justice and the Hebrew Bible''. Vol. 2. Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice Series. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016. *''Social Justice and the Hebrew Bible''. Vol. 3. Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice Series. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2018.

Edited books

* Gottwald, Norman K., ed. ''The Bible and Liberation: Political and Social Hermeneutics''. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1983. * Gottwald, Norman K., and Richard A. Horsley, eds. ''The Bible and Liberation: Political and Social Hermeneutics''. Rev. ed. Bible and Liberation Series. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993. * Coote, Robert B., and Norman K. Gottwald, eds. ''To Break Every Yoke: Essays in Honor of Marvin L. Chaney''. Social World of Biblical Antiquity, 2nd ser., 3. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2007.

Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...
en

* Jobling, David, Peggy L. Day, and Gerald T. Sheppard, eds. ''The Bible and the Politics of Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Norman K. Gottwald on His Sixty-fifth Birthday''. Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1991. * Boer, Roland, ed. ''Tracking the Tribes of Yahweh: On the Trail of a Classic''. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplements 351. London: Sheffield Academic, 2002.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gottwald, Norman K. 1926 births 2022 deaths American biblical scholars Old Testament scholars University of California, Berkeley faculty Activists from Chicago