A Tribute to Gordon Fee

It’s been almost a year since Gordon Fee passed away. I wrote a little about his passing at the time and linked to other obituaries for him. Now the latest issue of the Journal of Pentecostal Theology has an editorial about Gordon Fee that is worth reading. On this blog, we remember Fee most for his text-critical work but he was known for much, much more of course. Here’s a taste:

Amongst the incredibly candid revelations to come out of this interview was Gordon’s confession that he was the least intentional NT scholar on the face of the earth, for he had pursued his theological training as preparation for a lifetime of missionary teaching and accidentally ‘fell’ into teaching; that he was spurred on to scholarship in part when he heard a minister say from the pulpit, ‘I would rather be a fool on fire than a scholar on ice’ – which led Gordon to the conviction that it should be possible to be a ‘scholar on fire’...

Later, the article mentions a tribute session at SBL in 2014 which, I think, is the one I attended. Here is what Fee said about that occasion.

Alzheimer’s is a cruel disease that robs you of your memories. I had forgotten about many of the things about which you spoke, but your memories brought back my memories that had been lost to me and I want to thank you all for these memories you have helped me reclaim. It is a gift I could not possibly have received in any other way.