Another friend passes

My friend, Bill Schoedel, died Monday. Bill was my mentor and Ph.D. thesis advisor at Brown University back in the 1960's. He was not much older than I, and he and his wife, Grace, had three children, Ruth, Paul and Carl, who were close in age to ours, and so during my grad student days, they became good friends to both Shirley and me. We would get together every Friday evening for pizza, and then would go to their house to play "Hearts," listen to music, and just talk. That closeness ended when I graduated from Brown and we moved to Keuka College in 1967. I very much stayed in touch by mail and phone, and we visited them in Providence once or twice, but then they moved to Urbana, IL when Bill joined the faculty in Religion at the University of Illinois. We visited them there in Urbana maybe twice, but mostly we just exchanged annual Christmas letters. So for over 50 years, it has been a friendship, but not a close one. Their son, Paul, died at age 63 just last year, on Christmas Eve. Paul was born May 6, 1960, so he was between my Betsey and John in age, and like Betsey, died an untimely death. In appearence, he was the spitting image of his dad. His death must have been heart-breaking to Bill. Bill himself chose to die by means of VSED - Vountary Stopping of Eating and Drinking. His wife was in touch via Facebook and let me know it was going to happen, and then, yesterday, let me know Bill had died. She said it took nine days, and it was hard work, but she had the help of the local Hospice, and her daughter, Ruth also lives nearby in Urbana. Bill evidently had several medical conditions that made him pretty miserable. Bill was born in Canada, and was a graduate student at the University of Chicago when I was there in seminary. As a student of Robert M. Grant, he took the opportunity to learn Coptic and tranalate the Gospel of Thomas into English for Grant's book on Thomas, The Secret Sayings of Jesus. I think this was the earliest book on Thomas to come out in English, and for Bill to have his name attached to it as the translator was something of a coup for him. Bill went on to publish commentaries on Polycarp, Papias and the Letters of Ignatius in the Apostolic Fatherss series, and several articles. When I was at Keuka, he encouraged me to take on the project of writing a commentary on The Diatessaron of Tatian, and I went so far as to get a grant from the College Center for the Finger Lakes to pay for photocopying everything I could find back in the Brown Library havng to do with Tatian, so that I could do research back in upstate New York. It was a large box of materials on Tatian (I think it may still be around here somewhere!). But I left Keuka for Lawrence, and then left teaching for administration, as a Dean of Men, and that was the end of that. It was both fascinating and overwhelming as a project. The overwhelming part was that the Diatessaron (a second century "Harmony" of the four Gospels, i.e., the four Gospels merged into a single narrative) exists only in early translations from the original Greek (some say the original was in Syriac) into e.g., Armenian, Syriac, Old Latin, Arabic, Dutch, Old High German and Middle English. The original no longer exists. That's a lot of languages to have to deal with! Some, but not all, of them have been translated into English, which helps. But they were all significantly different versions of the Diatessaron. One of the challenges facing a commentator on Tatian is: what did the original Diatessaron look like? It seemed almost impossible to answer that question, but one would have to deal with it. I'm sure it was a disappointment to Bill that I never really got into that project, except to collect materials on it, but he never said so. I was most fortunate to have Bill as a thesis advisor. He was very patient and understanding, he was supportive of what turned out to be a somewhat eccentric thesis, he did not make impossible demands, and he saw it through with me to completion. It could have been otherwise - believe me, I have known many grad students whose Ph.D. dissertations never got written because of their advisor's attitude. Here is a brief obituary: "URBANA - William (Bill) Schoedel, 94, died at home in Urbana on Monday (April 1, 2024). Bill was born in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, and is survived by his wife, Grace Schoedel of Urbana; daughter, Ruth Schoedel Book (Thomas) of Urbana; and son Carl Schoedel (Lisa) of Geneva. His son Paul Schoedel preceded him in death. Also surviving are his grandchildren, Lynn Book of Olalla, Wash., Laura Book (Esfandiar Alizadeh) of Santa Monica, Calif., Katelyn Schoedel (Ryan Offord) of Evanston and Daniel Schoedel (Jillian) of Schiller Park; and three great-grandchildren. Bill attended the University of Western Ontario, Concordia Seminary and the University of Chicago, ending with a Ph.D. in New Testament and early Christian studies. He taught at Valparaiso University and Brown University before joining the faculty at the University of Illinois to start a program in religious studies. He was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1976. Bill was an avid reader in all subjects, particularly music and nature. He enjoyed playing chamber music, specializing in the violin, viola and viola da gamba. A memorial gathering will be held at a later date."

William R. Schoedel (1930-2024). Rest In Peace, Bill! Thank you for helping to make me who I am! P.S. I found a letter Bill sent me back in the 1960's (it is undated). It includes a report on his attendance at the national meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature at which my dissertation was highly praised by the keynote speaker! He is urging me to keep my hand in the field of biblical scholarship. I was not able to fulfill this hope, though I have certainly maintained my study and teaching of the Bible, but it has been more for and with lay persons, rather than the scholarly community. I feel okay about that.

Letter from Bill to me in the late 1960's.