FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 8, 2001 CONTACT: Lisa Lacher, (515) 271-3119 BIBLICAL SCHOLAR TO SPEAK AT DRAKE MONDAY James Barr, one of the leading Biblical scholars in the world, will give the Stringfellow Lecture at Drake University on Monday, Feb. 12. The lecture, titled "The Bible and the Culture of the Modern University," is free and open to the public. It will start at 7:30 p.m. in Parents Hall at Olmsted Center, 29th Street and University Avenue. Barr first became famous in the world of Biblical scholarship for his critique of the linguistics of scholars who ascribed a unique metaphysics to the Hebrew language and contrasted it to the metaphysics of Greek. Soon afterwards he joined with Brevard Childs in a critique of the leading concepts of the Biblical theology movement; they brought the movement to a halt. In the decades that followed, Barr subjected the scholarship of Christian fundamentalism to a searching critique. In more recent years he has been constructing a case for a natural theology based in Scripture but exercising independent critical judgment. As one might expect from his role as critic, Barr has been in the midst of controversy all his career. He has recently drawn together his judgments in a book titled "The Concept of Biblical Theology." A full session was devoted to the review of this book at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature last November. "We are proud to have a scholar of James Barr's stature as our Stringfellow Lecturer to inaugurate a new century and millennium," said Dale Patrick, professor of religion at Drake. A native of Scotland, Barr received his university degrees from Edinburgh University; his doctorate is from Oxford. He has held Old Testament professorships at Edinburgh, Princeton, Manchester, Oxford and Vanderbilt. Now that he has retired, he lives in Claremont, Calif. The Stringfellow Lectureship is a memorial to the late Ervin E. Stringfellow, professor of New Testament language and literature at Drake for 41 years. The lectureship was established by the Cornerstone Class of First Christian Church in 1962. For more information, call (515) 271-3836.