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Memorial
Service for Professor William Whedbee to be held at
Pomona College on Feb. 14
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 A
memorial service celebrating the life of Professor J.
William (Bill) Whedbee, who died in his sleep at home on
Thursday, January 22, will be held on Saturday, February 14,
at 2 p.m. at Bridges Hall of Music on the campus of Pomona
College, at 150 East Fourth Street in Claremont. Dr. Whedbee,
who was 65, was the Nancy M. Lyon Professor of Biblical
History and Literature and of Religious Studies at Pomona
College.
A member of the Pomona faculty since 1966, Dr. Whedbee was a
five-time winner of the College’s Wig Distinguished
Professorship Award for Excellence in Teaching, who touched
and transformed the lives of countless students, many of
whom were inspired to follow in his footsteps. “Teaching was
his love and joy,” says Zayn Kassam, a friend and chair of
the Religious Studies Department. “It was an art for him. No
matter how many times he had taught the course, he read just
about everything important that had been published in the
field after he had last taught the course and incorporated
it. I can't imagine that incoming freshmen will no longer
have the opportunity to take Bill's signature class,
Biblical Heritage, which he taught every semester.”
Dr. Whedbee also taught Elementary Classical Hebrew,
Readings in Classical Hebrew, The New Testament and the
History of Early Christianity, and Myth in Classical and
Contemporary Religious Traditions.
“He was able to let the texts speak for themselves,” noted
his friend and colleague Jerry Irish. “He was able to step
out of the way and, in doing so, he enabled hundreds of
students to start telling and living their own stories. Bill
understood that teaching, like friendship, was to hear lives
into being, to listen and respond to the stories of others.”
Rabbi Shelton Donnell, with Temple Beth Shalom Orange County
and Pomona Class of 1972, is one of many who credit Dr.
Whedbee with life-changing influence. "Bill is the reason I
became a rabbi," he noted recently.
Dr. Whedbee’s research covered Biblical and ancient
near-Eastern literature and religion (especially
mythological and epic texts, prophetic and wisdom
literature), the history of biblical interpretation,
hermeneutics, and literary criticism. He was the author of
several books and articles, the most recent of which was the
well-received The Bible and the Comic Vision (Cambridge,
1998). Its publication in paperback in 2002 (Fortress)
illustrates its accessibility for students as well as
scholars. “His distinctive contribution to the field,”
explains Professor Irish, “was to bring his considerable
knowledge of contemporary literary criticism and critical
theory to his studies of the Bible, evident in his attention
to the comic vision in the Bible.”
Dr. Whedbee’s impact on Pomona’s campus extended far beyond
his students and department colleagues. Among those inspired
were past and present Pomona-Pitzer soccer student-athletes
who were “touched with Bill's kindness and unwavering
support through the best and worst of times,” said Bill
Swartz, coach of the Pomona-Pitzer men’s soccer team.
“While
spending his last season with the team this fall, Bill
continued to teach the coaches and players that ‘whatever
our hands had decided to do, to do it well.’”
Outside Pomona’s gates, Dr. Whedbee gave seminars at Hebrew
Union College and team-taught the Bible with his wife, Dr.
Tamara C. Eskenazi, in a number of congregations. He earned
his B.A. degree from Westmont College, his B.D. from Fuller
Theological Seminary, and both his M.A. and Ph.D. degree
from Yale University.
The family requests that donations in memory of Bill Whedbee
be made to Pomona College in care of David Scott, Director
of Stewardship and Memorial Funds, 550 North College Avenue,
Claremont, CA 91711.
Dr. Whedbee is survived by his beloved wife, Dr. Tamara Cohn
Eskenazi (professor of Bible at Hebrew Union College, Los
Angeles), and son David Whedbee (a law student at the
University of Washington), as well as his sister Shirley
Herman of Seattle, along with step-children Willa Eskenazi
(Denver), Kay Eskenazi (San Francisco), Joanne Cohn
(Berkeley), Michael Eskenazi (Santa Barbara), and David Cohn
(Palo Alto). Five step – grandchildren also survive him:
Erika and Nicole Eskenazi, Miranda and Jeremy Cohn, and Alex
Cohn White. |
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