LOUISVILLE — M. Lucetta
Mowry, a scripture scholar and archaeologist and one of the principal
translators of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible,
died in a Maryland hospital on Feb. 23 at age 91.
A well-known New Testament scholar and author, she also was a
professor and academic dean at Wellesley College, from which she
retired in 1981. She taught courses in subjects ranging from Hebrew
scriptures to Gandhi’s theory of non-violence. She was the
holder of Wellesley’s Andrew W. Mellon emeritus professorship
in the humanities.
Mowry was a member of the interdenominational committee that
the National Council of Churches (NCC) created to update the Revised
Standard Version of the Bible into contemporary but authentic
language, a project that started in 1975 and continued for 14
years. She translated the Gospel of John and the Johannine Epistles,
and was one of two members chosen to edit the entire volume.
Mowry also took part in archaeological excavations in Jordan and
Libya and wrote books on such subjects as music in the Bible and
the Dead Sea Scrolls. In retirement she led Bible studies at the
retirement community where she lived in Sykesville, MD, according
to an obituary in The Washington Post.
Mowry, who was born to missionary parents in Pyongyang, North
Korea, earned a bachelor’s degree in 1934 from Wilson College,
a Presbyterian-related school in Chambersburg, PA, and four years
later a master’s degree from Presbyterian College of Christian
Education in Chicago, now McCormick Theological Seminary. In 1946
she earned a doctorate from Yale University.
She is survived by a sister, Miriam Mowry Stein of Rockville,
MD.
|
