An interview with Dr. Sandra Richter

This is the fourth and final week featuring Old Testament scholar Sandra Richter, who holds the Robert H. Gundry Chair of Biblical Studies at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California.

In May 2018, Elizabeth Glass Turner published an interview with Dr. Richter and an excerpt is included in this post, with a link to the entire interview added at the end of the excerpt. The interview was published in the United Methodist magazine, Good News, and was entitled, "Archaeologist, Mama, Defender of the Faith".

Here's the excerpt, with Dr. Richter speaking about her book, The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament, at the end,

“There aren’t many women in my age category in biblical studies at all! Add a husband and children to that and the numbers drop dramatically,” Richter responds. “I started studying Bible for the sake of ministry. When I realized I would be transitioning from ministry into education, I went back and studied more. By then I was doing Hebrew and Aramaic and archaeology and systematics.” Before long she was intensively studying Hebrew (known as Rapid Reading) under Jo Ann Hackett, noted Old Testament scholar at Harvard University, and working on the Tel Dothan archeology collection in Jerusalem under Gary Pratico from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Richter took modern Hebrew at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and applied to excavate under Larry Stager of Harvard University in Ashkelon, a historic Philistine city along the coast of Israel. For her, there was no turning back.

Ten years ago, Richter had put the final touches on a book adapted from her Introduction to Old Testament seminary class content. Pastors she trained were yearning for a way to easily communicate the depth of her material to their congregations. After all, the Old Testament is often the wince-inducing portion of the Bible for many Christians. Richter continually managed to do something almost quixotic: she made the Old Testament clear and approachable – and therefore interesting – without sacrificing nuance, substance, or academic rigor. The Epic of Eden will soon be out in a 2nd edition from InterVarsity Press, while the Seedbed Publishing curriculum that builds on the original volume continues its widespread popularity.

“What actually strikes me the most about Epic is the sense of calling I had in writing that book,” Richter reflects. “Of course, in academia you are expected to write. Getting a job, building a reputation in the guild are all dependent on getting those books and articles out. But with Epic I felt called to write the book. I honestly felt like God wasn’t going to let me die until it was written. And now looking back at these past ten years — I am struck by the fact that it has been my most widely distributed and most influential publication.”

Here's the link to the full interview: https://goodnewsmag.org/2018/05/archaeologist-mama-defender-of-the-faith/