Since I wrote about her in my application essay, she was appointed as my adviser. Like every other MDiv student I knew, I found her intimidating. As an adviser, she was efficient. As a lecturer, she was brilliant. I remember sitting in the large classroom with my 70 classmates in Introduction to the Old Testament, at the end of her lecture on Judges 19 and the rape of the Levite’s concubine. The class was over, but for a few sacred moments no one spoke or moved. The woman sitting next to me had a tear streaking her cheek. Trible’s carefully crafted words made us see, hear, understand, and feel the power of scripture.
I wish I could tell you that she saw prodigious Old Testament talent in me and encouraged me to pursue doctoral studies. But my face was one in a sea of amorphous students, and the truth is she didn’t know me from Eve. Years later, I saw her again when I attended a lecture at Union shortly after being accepted into an Old Testament PhD program. When I nervously approached Dr. Trible (what we always called her) to tell her how her work had started me on this trajectory, she simply smiled and said, “Welcome.”
Her welcome to me continued as the years wore on. I would see her at the Columbia University Hebrew Bible seminar, and one time she suggested getting together. We set a date to meet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After viewing her favorite pieces—the marble sculpture of Jonah and the whale just to the left of the grand staircase, a large Corot painting of Hagar—we went to the Balcony restaurant on the second floor, where her membership enabled our entry. I vividly recall sitting across from her at one of the lounge tables during that magical afternoon. We ordered pear bellinis and sipped them while talking about the children in the Old Testament, starting with Ishmael. For me this was like chatting over a drink with Taylor Swift. By some miracle, I had become friends with an academic rock star.
Our friendship grew over the years, and my former professor shared many stories with me about her own education and experiences in the academy. Realizing that oral history is precious yet precarious, I asked Phyllis (what I came to call her) last summer if I could record a conversation about her life, and she graciously agreed. Here is one of the stories she shared with me.
Early in her scholarly career, Phyllis spent a year in Jerusalem at the Albright Institute. “It was very much of the Albright School, and I was not an Albrightian,” she explained, referring to the academic and archeological legacy of William Foxwell Albright. She told me that no one was bringing feminism to the Bible at that time. And, not surprisingly, all of the other scholars in residency then were men.
I mostly connected with Bill Dever’s son, Sean; Bill and his wife Norma, were there. He was a sweet little boy. He and I—just the two of us—would go down the street for ice cream. Frank Moore Cross [esteemed scholar from Harvard] was also at the Albright Institute on sabbatical, but he did not pay any attention to me. Then one day at lunch, he turned to Bill Dever and asked, “Where is that girl from Andover?” Bill said, “Oh Phyllis? She’s right here.” I was seated next to him. Frank Moore Cross was mortified. As soon as he left the room, we all burst out laughing. After that, we always referred to him as “that boy from Harvard.”
This story is a snapshot of the remarkable scholar I came to love, not only for her groundbreaking work but for her unassuming self. Phyllis Trible changed how many of us read the Bible. She altered the course of my life as her passion for the Hebrew Scriptures inspired my own. Now I am the one with a tear streaking my cheek; I will miss her very much.
But she leaves us all a legacy of biblical proportions.
