Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.09.1994, Blaðsíða 13

Bruce M. Metzger
In RecoIIection of Jakob Jónsson
It is a pleasure for me to join other friends of Dr. Jakob Jónsson in
expressing appreciation for the life and work of a gifted and versatile
scholar and churchman. Well-known in Iceland as a playwright and a poet,
séra Jakob gained the doctor of theology degree for a dissertation on
„Humor and Irony in the New Testament, Illuminated by Parallels in
Talmud and Midrash,” published by Bókaútgáfa Menningarsjóðs,
Reykjavík, in 1965, and re-issued in 1985 by E.J.Brill in Leiden, with a
Foreword by Krister Stendahl, Bishop of Stockholm. On the basis of the
scholarship displayed in this dissertation Dr. Jónsson was elected to
membership in SNTS (Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas) at its 21st
General Meeting, held at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 29 August - 1
September 1966.
My first opportunity to make the acquaintance of Dr. Jónsson was in
August 1967 when both of us attended the 22nd General Meeting of
SNTS, held at Reformierte Heimstatte, Gwatt, Switzerland. Both at this
meeting and at subsequent meetings it was his custom to participate from
time to time in the discussion of papers presented in the general sessions.
I recall that his observations were always pertinent to the topic under
discussion and often offered new insights.
Following the General Meeting held 11-15 August 1969 at Hochschule
St. Georgen in Fankfurt/ M., about twenty members of SNTS, some with
their wives, travelled to Tel Aviv to begin a ten-day study-tour of important
sites in Palestine. It was in such circumstances that I was able to make
further acquaintance with Dr. Jónsson and his wife, Þóra Einarsdóttir. In
the day-to-day activities of the tom- all of us grew to appreciate Dr.
Jónsson's wide interests and keen wit. Despite the unaccustomed
temperatures that confronted northem visitors to Palestine in August, the
Jónssons were altogether ready and willing to participate fully throughout
the tour.
My next contact with Dr. Jónsson came the following September
(1970), when, on my retum to the USA from Glasgow, I stopped off for
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