FIVE KEZAR PONDS, ME — Ronald Arthur Gestwicki, 71, of Five Kezar Ponds, Maine and Sanibel, Florida died at Stephens Memorial Hospital on Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 after a nearly three year fight with mesothelioma, and one week after his return to his beloved ponds. He was born on January 19, 1939, in Dunkirk, New York, to Earnest and Beatrice Gestwicki and attended schools in Dunkirk. He graduated from the University of Buffalo in 1960 with a BA in chemistry, awarded the T. R. McConnell award as the outstanding graduate. He spent the year following graduation in New York City as a special student at Columbia University, a laboratory technician at Mount Sinai Hospital, and the summer in London, England in the Winant Volunteer Student Program. He then attended General Theological Seminary in New York City, graduating in 1964 with a Master of Divinity. In 1966 he enrolled at Drew Graduate School to study for a Ph.D. in religion and modern literature. After transferring to Syracuse University in 1968, he received his Ph.D. in 1971. As a college professor, he taught at Hobart and William Smith from 1970-1972. Most of his academic career was spent teaching in the Religious Studies department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, from 1972 until retirement in 2001. While teaching full-time, he also worked part-time as an Intensive Journal Consultant, then as Director of Advanced Studies in Holistic Depth Psychology for Ira Progoff’s Dialogue House Program in New York City. After retirement, he attended Antioch New England Graduate School, graduating in 2003 with a Master of Science in Environmental Studies. His last work was a field biologist for the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, 2001-2007. He was the author of two books: Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy and Other Stories: A Child’s Introduction to Religion (1978), and A Life Study of Franz Kafka: Using the Intensive Journal Method by Ira Progoff (1992).

He was married to Carol Louise Findlater of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in 1964. They met in Kenya on Operation Crossroads Africa during the summer of 1962, and spent the first two years of marriage working for the Episcopal Church in German South West Africa, now Namibia. He was an involved and loving father for sons Timothy Scott, born in 1965, and Jay Douglas, born in 1971. Beyond his professional and family life, Ron loved the outdoors, and was a passionate environmentalist and conservationist, serving on the board of the Greater Lovell Land Trust, and as President of the Five Kezar Ponds Watershed Association until his illness. He was a competitive runner, a social activist, and a lover of good times. He will be remembered by family and friends as a man with strong convictions and opinions.

He is survived by his wife of 45 years, Carol, his sons Tim and Jay, both of Charlotte, and granddaughters Lila and Rose.

There will be a graveside burial ceremony on Sunday, May 23, 2010 in Woodlawn Cemetery, North Waterford, Maine, followed by a reception in the family cottage, 114 Five Kezar Ponds, Rd. In lieu of flowers remembrance donations may be made to the Greater Lovell Land Trust, P. O. Box 181, Center Lovell, ME 04016, with the designation ‘Ron Gestwicki Memorial.’

Arrangements are under the direction of Weston-Chandler Funeral Home 45 Main St., South Paris. Online condolences may be shared with his family at www.westonchandler.com
Published in Charlotte Observer on May 21, 2010

Ancient Ruins of Tamar

Over the past 20 years I have made 40 trips to Israel, nearly always for purposes of archaeology and research. Many of my friends, family, and associates, including readers of my books that I have never met, have asked me if I would ever consider leading a tour. I have never seemed to find the time to work that in until now.  I am now able to officially announce such a tour. The dates are October 25 through November 5, 2010.

Here are the details:

I have teamed up with Dr. DeWayne Coxen of Blossoming Rose, who is highly experienced on the logistical side of things, but also gives us special access to the biblical site of Tamar in the Negev desert, as well as the archaeological site of ‘Ein ‘Hatzeta, the Iron Age fortress from the time of the 1st Temple–where we will actually do some digging! I have also included special guest Keith Johnson, who will go with us on the entire trip, and Nehemia Gordon, who will teach us in Galilee about what he and Keith have discovered regarding the “Lord’s Prayer” as covered in their book, A Prayer to Our Father.

This trip is different from any that I have ever seen. It is neither Christian nor Jewish, but we will visit sites relevant to both traditions. One can never include everything but DeWayne and I have spent several months working out the itinerary and balancing choices so that I think our result is going to be the best possible one in terms of balance and depth.  I want to take people (many who will go have never been to the Land) all over and show them many things I have learned over the years, but I also want some in-depth time in the desert, at Tamar, as a Sukkoth type experience. This amazing site, down in the Negev, will be the centerpiece of our tour.

We are opening the enrollment today. Our space is limited to 40 people and I think these spaces will go fast.  If you are interested in going you should go ahead and save your place for now and work out details later.

We have kept the price under $3000 which is hard to do with prices for flights rising. This covers round-trip travel from the NY area to Tel Aviv and most all ground expenses. You book your own flight to NY but we will help you once you register to work that flight into a package deal that will save you some money. You also have the option of getting your own flights using Frequent Flyer or other options and buying just the Land package. And for those who have been many times to Israel and do not want to tour the whole Land, you can join us just at Tamar for a reduced price.

This is a very special trip, different from any other I am aware of, and what it offers, both in terms of the group that will be going, the teachers, and the itinerary, makes it a once in a lifetime opportunity. I will be present on the entire tour and be accessible to those who travel with us.

Hope to see many of you join us!

I am attaching two documents, one giving the itinerary, the other providing you with a registration form to send in. All the pricing questions, logistics, and arrangements are being handled by Blossoming Rose but feel free to write me with any questions about the trip itself or its contents.

Prof. James D. Tabor

jdtabor@uncc.edu

Tabor & Coxon Itinerary (PDF)

Tour Registration form (PDF)

There is a most impressive new website just up dealing with the Talpiot “Jesus” tomb in all of its aspects at talpiottomb.com. It is sponsored by JTERP (Jesus Tomb Education and Research Project), headed by Jerry Lutgen who works in the informatics health care field. You can read more of him as well as JTERP, its history and its purposes here. Some of my readers might remember Mr. Lutgen from his published article “The Talpiot Tomb: What are the Odds?” published at Bible & Interpretaton, that dealt with why the various studies using statistics differ so wildly in their conclusions. Lutgen also has a most interesting new study titled “Did the Set of Names from the Talpiot Tomb Arise by Chance,” which you can download at this new website.

I must say I am highly impressed. It looks to me like Mr. Lutgen has drawn together just about every major source related to the discussion of the Talpiot tomb since it first caught the public attention in 2006-2007, with all the resulting heat and light that has followed. The site “thick” with information, ranging from a summary of the basic issues to a rich and ever expanding bibliography, with an emphasis on materials that can be accessed on-line. He even offers a “survey” for readers to give their views, a new Facebook group one can join for discussion, and a section where one can use an Excel spreadsheet to turn one’s views of Talpiot (based on seven key arguments) into a quantifiable percentage! I can see how anyone interested in the Talpiot tomb will spend a lot of time at this site, bookmark it, and return often, as Mr. Lutgen promises to keep us up with all the latest–including new research just now emerging that might inform our overall body of evidence.

Today is my birthday and I am in a “thinking back” mood. Let’s just say I can now sing the lovely Beatles song, “When I’m Sixty-Four.” So looking back…

I published my first book back in 1986: Things Unutterable: Paul’s Ascent to Paradise in its Graeco-Roman, Judean, and Early Christian Contexts (University Press of America). It was in the Brown University Studies in Judaism series, and was recommended through the good agency of Jacob Neusner. The book is essentially my Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Chicago, written under the esteemed and legendary Jonathan Z. Smith with the equally illustrious Robert M. Grant as a reader and co-director. I graduated from the Humanities in the Department of New Testament and Early Christian Literature–look it up, it was quite a place in those days, outside the Divinity School, but thriving with its own purposes and emphases, headed by Prof. Grant.

I was incredibly proud of that book, dedicated it to my late father, Elgie Lincoln Tabor, and I would still stand with most of the positions I take in that book, even after nearly 30 years (Ph.D. 1981 so I wrote it in 1980).  The Journal of Religion, in reviewing books on Paul during the decade of the 1980s, put my book in the top ten. My new book on Paul with Simon & Schuster (publication date yet to be determined) will make some huge advances beyond what I knew and understood in 1986, but it absolutely builds on the former.

The book has been long out of print and regularly sells on Amazon for $200-700–which seems pretty ridiculous. Over the years I have had hundreds of requests for copies and I only own two or three myself. I recently authorized Genesis 2000, one of my publishers, to issue an unbound edition, autographed, with color cover (8.5 x 11) for $25.00. It is not a photocopy of the book (hey that’s illegal, right!) but an actual printout of the page poofs from the original disk–which now belongs to me. If you are interested you can order through Amazon.

I have taught Christian Origins and Ancient Judaism the past 20 years in the Department of Religious Studies at UNC Charlotte, a North Carolina state university. Prior to that I taught in the Dept. of Religion at the College of William and Mary,  a Virginia state school. Even earlier, my first job was teaching in a Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. Although some of the methods and approaches to the study of early Christianity are the same, what goes on in the distinctive field we call “Religious Studies” is quite different from that of Theology. I studied and wrote my dissertation under Jonathan Z. Smith of the University of Chicago, who perhaps as much as anyone one single person of our generation has contributed to the developing enterprise we call “Religious Studies” in our various state and private schools throughout America.

Our UNC Charlotte Department of Religious Studies was recently profiled in a very nicely done cover story in UNC Charlotte Magazine, which is a nice slick color publication for alumni and friends of the University, but fortunately also appears on-line. I highly recommend this insightful article and I am honored to serve as Chair, for the past six years, of this wonderful and thriving department with such a great history. I think what is said about us can be rightly said for many such departments around the country, and indeed for the study of Religion in the academic study of the Humanities in general.

You can read the story here or download as a PDF file:

http://www.publicrelations.uncc.edu/resources/pdfs/magazine/uncc_magazine_q42009_updated.pdf