Published on May 30, 2017  

He has returned to Israel this year, accompanied by seven Samford students.  His reports are always beautiful, informative and poignant.  Here is a paragraph from the message he sent this past weekend:

"I am struck more and more by how archaeology is a human science.  I want to hold up objectivity as the highest value.  And this certainly is the case when it comes to gathering data and drawing conclusions.  (Well, we are as objective as we can be.)  But we are uncovering what remains of the lives of the dead.  These people, worked, loved and hated, devoted themselves to or ignored their God, and died either peacefully or as someone’s victims.  We cannot touch their things—return them to the light of day after 1800 years—without becoming committed to them, or to our imagined construction of them.  At least I cannot.
 
"Would that we all could do the same with the living."

The world is better because of the scholarship and influence of James Strange.

 
Samford is a leading Christian university offering undergraduate programs grounded in the liberal arts with an array of nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. Founded in 1841, Samford is the 87th-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Samford enrolls 5,791 students from 49 states, Puerto Rico and 16 countries in its 10 academic schools: arts, arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, health professions, law, nursing, pharmacy and public health. Samford fields 17 athletic teams that compete in the tradition-rich Southern Conference and ranks 6th nationally for its Graduation Success Rate among all NCAA Division I schools.