1. E. Earle Ellis
   

2. 1926-2010
   

Scholar-Servant to the Body of Christ

“His fame was in the footnotes”

A personal tribute and remembrance

Garry D. Nation

With the arrival of the Summer 2010 issue of the Southwestern News (SWBTS) that I learned of the passing from this life of one of my professors, Dr. E. Earle Ellis.  Scripture teaches us to acknowledge those who labor among us, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake (See 1 Thessalonians 5:12,13).  Dr. Ellis is worthy of very high esteem and remembrance.

[See his obituary in the Baptist Press here, and in “The Hill” from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary here.]

Few Christians know the name of E. Earle Ellis or the worldwide impact of his diligent scholarship—unless they are themselves serious and diligent students of the New Testament.  He did not address masses of young people at great rallies.  He did not make the circuit supplying pulpits as a popular preacher. Most of the audiences to which he spoke were smaller ones, seminary classes, seminars, and scholarly conferences, filled with Ph.D.s and seminary and graduate students—and they listened with rapt attention.

The truly serious students of the Bible, the ones who consult the footnotes and bibliographies of commentaries and articles, may indeed recognize his name.  The preachers and Bible teachers may even have used the accessible and clear commentaries he wrote on Colossians (Wycliffe Bible Commentary), or the Gospel of Luke (New Century Commentary, multiple editions and printings).  

For the most part, however, his fame was in the footnotes. He was a scholar for scholars, one whose deep and profound studies were used and quoted by others, and continue to be so.  He was a giant of scholarship, but a quiet one.

I cannot here relate all his published books and articles, and a partial list scarcely would do him justice.  (Click here to see his Curriculum Vitae current to 2005.)  At least a couple of works should be mentioned, however.

It is the dream of every doctoral student that his dissertation, that mother of all research papers which is the climax of years of study, should be published and (hopefully) respected as a contribution to his field. Alas, that dream is seldom fulfilled (and it did not happen for me either).  There are, however, a few rare scholars whose dissertations are not only published and acknowledged by their peers, but also affect the direction of scholarship and become a standard reference for years to come.  Albert Schweitzer’s The Quest of the Historical Jesus comes to mind.

Dr. Ellis’s first book, Paul’s Use of the Old Testament (Edinburgh & Grand Rapids, 1957) stands in this category.  It is a standard work, authoritative in its treatment of the subject, still in print, and well on its way to being considered a classic.

When I sat under his tutelage in a doctoral seminar in the late ‘80s, he was already assembling material and developing a thesis that would find full expression in what he called his “most comprehensive work” and many others call his magnum opus: The Making of the New Testament Documents (Leiden, 1999).  In it he thoroughly validates and justifies a simple but profound thesis: that the Gospels and epistles of the New Testament come to us from the apostles who knew and walked with Jesus.  In the light of current state of scholarship and high degree of biblical skepticism in academia, his achievement here is astonishing.

[An article by E. Earle Ellis related to this topic, titled “Reading the Gospels as History,” is available here.]

Dr. Ellis was known among his peers, among whom he enjoyed universal respect, as a conservative and evangelical scholar.  Well, yes, if we must have labels, those are appropriate. I found him to be simply a man who believed in the Bible, and believed in the Christ who is revealed in the Bible. He had complete confidence in that book’s divine authority for faith and practice, and also in its historical authority as a faithful and true witness to what it affirms. I gathered that his point of view was this: if you are a Christian, you believe the Bible; but if you do not believe in the Bible, you have no ground for claiming to be a Christian. Though he had a personal Savior, he did not consider Christianity to be a private possession that one may change to fit his own preferences.

At the same time, Dr. Ellis was no fideist who started with the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture and then set out to prove it. Even less did he ignore evidence that might disprove it. He was fearless to pursue historical and textual evidence inductively, not in order to prove that the Bible is true, but because he believed that it is true and therefore the honest seeker will find it true. He correctly surmised that most (if not all) the skepticism of modern and post-modern scholarship is rooted in presuppositions, not evidence.

Neither was he a fundamentalist, and some of the more conservative brethren found some of his opinions disconcerting and controversial.  Dr. Ellis did not approach things as a controversialist, however.  He simply sought to be an honest interpreter of the Bible. Some professors don’t like to be challenged and are easily provoked, but not Dr. Ellis—but one had better be prepared to back up one’s contrary opinions, because his incisive questioning could test them severely.

His approach was disarmingly commonsensical.  One time he related to our class a story from his days of study at Tübingen, the university that defined modern liberalism.  His colleagues were challenging his Bible-centered faith. They asked whether he really believed in Adam and Eve.  He replied, “If you believe in sex you believe in Adam and Eve. There had to be a first pair.”

I do not present myself here as one who was close to Dr. Ellis or supped with him as a friend. I had the privilege to be one of his students for two semesters.  This I can say: I sat under the teaching of some outstanding scholars at Southwestern, men of God, men of the Word, great servants not just to Southern Baptists but all to the church of the living God. None made me raise my game as a scholar as much as Dr. Ellis.

In all my doctoral studies, the only B that I ever received on a paper, I received from Dr. Ellis. It stung, but I deserved it; it was a mediocre effort whose thesis was little more than a statement of the obvious. In class he said nothing in the discussion of it beyond “Thank you for your paper.” When I received it back I saw he had written nothing, only the grade. Ouch. This is what it means to be damned with faint praise.

The second semester I resolved to do better, but I was having a hard time getting a handle on the topic that Dr. Ellis assigned to me. I finally “got it” and was pleased with my research, analysis, and presentation.  However, my best insights came through other scriptures than the ones on which Dr. Ellis had wanted me to focus.  On the day I presented my paper I was interrupted before I began by my good professor, who directed me to restrict my presentation to certain portions, and rebuked me for straying away from my assigned verses and into those assigned to another member of the seminar.  Ouch, ouch, ouch!

When I received the paper back it bore red ink from his pen on nearly every page.  Some of it blistered me for departing too much from my specific assignment, but those were things I’d already heard at the seminar table.  Other remarks, however, bore praise for what I got right.  On the last page was the grade: A.  If I’ve ever been slain in the Spirit it was then! “It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools” (Ecclesiastes 7:5).

The following year it was time for me to work on my Ph.D. dissertation. I needed a supervising professor, but I had a difficult time getting one to sign on to the topic of my interest (never mind what it was—I still haven’t written on it). One prof was going on sabbatical, and another said in so many words, “Come back when you’ve got a theology topic.” I decided it wouldn’t hurt to ask Dr. Ellis.  I wasn’t optimistic, but I was running out of professors.

His office/study at the seminary was so fully lined with overflowing bookshelves from floor to ceiling that to approach his desk was to walk through a narrow, cave-like corridor. It was not unusual for my professors to have stacks of books and desks that are piled high with papers, but there was a scholarly claustrophobia about Dr. Ellis’s quarters that impresses me to this day.  It was not just clutter. Even a casual view of the titles and authors told me that everything in there was for a purpose, a present project. 

Somehow there was room for a chair, where I sat and explained my reason for being there.  Dr. Ellis was very cordial, and actually more receptive to my ideas than I thought he would be. Then he suggested that in order for him to be of help to me as a supervisor, I would likely have to limit my topic far more severely than what I had in mind. He was so gracious that when I left I was sure that I had declined to ask him, not that he had refused me.

Others can testify better of E. Earle Ellis as a tough-minded, world-class scholar; and others can tell better of him as a tenderhearted Christian of deep convictions.  I know him simply as a servant of the Lord who was my teacher.  To me he was and is a model of servanthood through scholarship, who demonstrated the righteous marriage of intellectual confidence with spiritual humility.

The Apostle Paul warned the Corinthians that “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up,” and I have known persons whose intelligence and learning made them arrogant. On the other hand, the Roman governor Festus cried out against Paul, “Your great learning is driving you out of your mind,” and I have known a few that made me wonder if that were true of them. 

There was nothing arrogant or unbalanced about E. Earle Ellis. A lifelong bachelor, he devoted his long life, his powerful intellect, his penchant for relentless investigation, and his charisma for teaching the Word of God, to the apostolic task of building up the body of Christ. The goal of his life’s work is well expressed in his words from the preface to The Making of the New Testament Documents: “In this Easter season, it is my prayer that the volume will glorify God and further illumine his Word to his church.”

Called to be a scholar, he reinforced the church in foundational ways that undergird our whole worldview.  People never see a foundation unless it cracks.  They never notice the infrastructure until it gives way.

In the same way that no one appreciates the electrician until the lights go out, so also the fame of E. Earle Ellis will likely continue to be confined to the footnotes—and that’s not bad. It’s amazing, in fact.  But by the service he has rendered, light-bearers will continue to be helped and strengthened for generations to come.