Undeserved Obscurity: Dr. Bruce Metzger
Princeton Reflections.
Dr. Gary Straub
Meadow@StMatthews
All—Saints Eve, 2021
Each All Saints Day I hunt for new ones! A lack of verifiable miracle need not disqualify candidates. Real miracles occur daily; most always UNacknowledged. My saint criteria: let a shard of Shekinah Light shine thru their personal quirks and give full glory to God. The saints I seek often dwell in obscurity. Sometimes well-deserved; others not. How about the saints hidden in plain sight? Many are simply overlooked among us.
Meet Bruce Metzger. Flip to the preface page of NRSV; signed by Bruce. He did not WRITE the Bible; but guided a gaggle of scholars through translation to create the NRSV. A world class scholar, whose humble roots and devotion made NRSV possible. November 12th, marks the anniversary of Bruce’s first day on Princeton campus. He came w/ his college friend, Morgan Edwards, who served Hummelstown Methodist Church on weekends. Bruce hitched a ride w/ Edwards, got a grand tour, interviewed and matriculated immediately. Princeton’s unique integration of scholarship and piety were a match for Metzger’s Pennsylvania Dutch roots.
Princeton’s mission is: “to unite in all who sustain the ministerial office—piety of heart, with solid learning; believing that religion w/o learning, or learning w/o religion, must ultimately prove injurious to the church.” Metzger’s integration of head/heart drew me to Princeton.
After a decade in the roller-derby of parish life, I landed on campus as a newbie ThM candidate. Every summer I signed up for whatever Metzger taught. My first Metzger class was a stunning contrast to my Bible College which required regurgitation of the text from memory to obtain an A+. Dr. Metzger’s lectures offered insight from Syriac, Aramaic, Latin, and Greek manuscripts which rekindled a zeal for the Scriptures that wavered in Bible College.
My Christian Doctrine major allowed exposure to Dr. M’s excursus on doctrines he extrapolated from the text. He stayed after class to clarify details referenced in his lecture. He rarely walked across campus without students (myself included) hanging on his every word. He would eat lunch at a student table, delighting in repartee— all with humble, self-deprecating humor. Bruce Metzger and Fred Craddock had to be first cousins!
One summer he offered special lectures on Revelation. I was in Rapture… until Dr M—a fervent Amillennialist—set me straight! My Scofield pre-mil dispensationalism took a thrashing! His favorite jest: “I am not a pre-millennialist or a post-millennialist, but a PAN-millennialist; trusting it will all pan out in The End.” That year I gave up Pre-Mil Eschatology for Lent!
For all his international acclaim, this man lived in the spiritual simplicity of his Pennsylvania Dutch River Brethren roots yet taught at the level of Einstein genius. Metzger’s deepest imprint on me was his prayers offered before class. His eloquent expressions dropped the bottom out of my soul and drew me into The Deep End. I marveled at how could I be both lost and found in The Presence by a Before Class prayer.
On the eve of All Saints, I nominate for sainthood the life of a renown World-Class scholar, who chose every-day obscurity in plain sight on campus as his mission field. Recently, he passed thru the Thin Veil into the Nearer Presence, and surely knows with Blessed Assurance the laughable small-mindedness of most of our Scripture squabbles.
PS — Campus Legend has it that Metzger’s photographic memory served him well on Wall Street. Each morning before he walked to class, he called in his stock trades! I was more engaged in his translations than tips!
