Tom is not Jewish; I think he's a Methodist. But his approach to the Bible is very rabbinic - taking time to explore all the nuances of meaning in a word or phrase, tracing the links to other texts, understanding the larger context. I take a similar approach, and i very much appreciated these classes. They were studying the book of Genesis when we started going, and the class spent 8 years going through Genesis verse by verse. That gives you an idea of the thoroughness of Tom's approach.
Well, he's hanging it up after 20 years, and there was a farewell party last night for everyone who had participated in the class over the years. It was held at Katie and Savanna's house - Savanna has been a regular pretty much all 20 years!
We saw quite a few folks we haven 't seen for a while and others we didn't know who had come before we started (or after we left). It was a very lovely event with good food, a commemorative cake, and even some substantive discussion on the question: who is the historical Jesus for you? (The group has been most recently studying the Gospel of Matthew ).
Tom Lindeman cutting his cake which says "Thank You, Tom"
Indeed - thank you, Tom, and all good wishes in this most recent retirement.
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