Leona Running's classnotes on "Persia"

koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

13 December 2010

One cannot study William Foxwell Albright, the genius of Biblical Archaeology without also knowing Leona Running. She was for many years research and editorial assistant to William Albright. She studied under Albright for her doctorate in Semitic Languages at Johns Hopkins. For years she was professor of biblical languages in the Seminary at Andrews University. She wrote her doctorate on Syriac Manuscripts of the book of Isaiah.

This writer has also had the honor of studying under Running at Andrews a few classes, especially Syriac. For her free time she proofread Hebrew Dictionaries and the Syriac Grammar of Theodore H. Robinson by Clarendon Press contained a number of errors which she corrected or listed as errata in her own copy. This writer had the honor of copying those errors listed by her and today his own copy contains the valuable comments of Running on this Grammar.

When she retired and cleaned out her office at Andrews Seminary, this writer was there to buy books and collect papers. Looking through these papers, I was surprised to find a original copy of her summary notes on the "Archaeology of Persia" unpublished.

It is provided below without comments of his own by this writer. Admittedly, this writer can also add quite a bit about the textual criticism of Zoroastrian Religion, which makes it late and almost useless for comparison with biblical ideas or theology, but we will leave it at that now.

The date of the document is 10th of April 1980. Actually, this writer has two copies of the same paper, a errorful one in which Running edited herself and corrected the paper, and then a retyping of it without errors. Only the last retyping is provided.

Leona Running is still alive and lives in Berrien Springs. She has only one eye that can still see but at the age of 93 she is still reading doctoral dissertations. She moves in a difficult way and people put her in a wheelchair so that she can attend her Sabbath School Classes on Sabbaths. Her mind is still very active. She brought out a diary that was published a year ago. This writer once sat in the class and watched her cleaning her nails from paint while she is teaching Syriac grammar and the tenses.