Kenneth E. Bailey, Th.D.
Kenneth E. Bailey, renowned New Testament scholar, seminary professor, author, Presbyterian career missionary, and international lecturer, died on Monday, May 23, 2016, at age eighty-five.
Born to career missionary parents who served in Egypt, the Sudan, and Ethiopia, Kenneth was introduced to Arabic and Arab cultures in early childhood. Upon completion of his university education, majoring in Philosophy at Monmouth College in Illinois, he married Ethel Jean Milligan, before attending Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. In 1955, the couple went to Egypt, where they began their own missionary vocation, serving until 1965 with the Egyptian Evangelical (Presbyterian) Church. First their work was in village evangelism, literacy work, and Bible teaching, then with the Pre-theological Program of Cairo’s Evangelical Seminary based in the southern city of Assiut — all while studying Arabic, absorbing folk culture and learning common sayings and proverbs. These experiences led Kenneth on a path of re-reading the Scriptures—and particularly the teachings and parables of Jesus—in their cultural context.
In 1965, the Baileys were reassigned to the Near East School of Theology (NEST) in Beirut, Lebanon. In 1970, they returned to the United States where Kemieth enrolled in an academic doctoral program at Concordia Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. There he subjected himself to a rigorous discipline of in-depth study of other biblical languages — Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac. Besides a newly acquired skill of reading biblical literature, the Talmud, and other Judaic commentaries in those languages, and enriched by his near-native Middle Eastern culture and his knowledge of Arabic, his attention turned to reading biblical literature through those important lenses. Combining his access to those resources with the background of his study of the gospels in Greek, he searched the Scriptures as one who could hear Jesus speaking in his native milieu with the fullness of its cultural nuances echoing in that part of the Greco-Roman Empire.
In 1972, the Baileys resumed their missionary service in Beirut, remaining there for much of Lebanon’s 17-year civil war. His students at the Near East School of Theology were Arab and Armenian Lebanese, Syrians, some Americans and Europeans, as well as others who came from the Sudan, Kenya, and Nigeria where wars were also raging. A new chapter in his missionary calling and teaching vocation took him simultaneously to Nicosia and Jerusalem. In Cyprus, he was inducted as Canon Theologian of the Anglican Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf; while in Jerusalem, he became part of the resident faculty of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute, until his retirement, in 1995, to New Wilmington, in western Pennsylvania.
In the course of his ministry and throughout his retirement, Dr. Bailey wrote ten volumes on distinctive biblical themes that have become a significant resource for academics, pastors, church educators, and adult leaders of various Christian denominations. He lectured widely across the Church and internationally, including leading Bible studies for gatherings of the archbishops of the Anglican Communion at Lambeth Palace, the Oxford Center for Mission Studies, the Center for the Study of Middle Eastern Christianity at the Evangelical Theological Seminary at Cairo, the Maryknoll Sisters, and at various Christian fellowship groups in the Arabian Gulf states.
He remains noted for his uniquely insightful treatment of the parables of Jesus, particularly that of the Prodigal Son (or, the Forgiving Father), and became widely read through his books, hundreds of journal articles, and an extensive film and video ministry including a full-length, professionally produced feature film made in Cairo under the title “Finding the Lost.” His final monograph was The Good Shepherd: A Thousand-year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament (2014), which he considered his best work.
Books that have been translated into numerous languages include The Cross and the Prodigal; Jacob and the Prodigal; Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies of the Gospels; Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes: Cultural Studies in First Corinthians; and others.
Dr. Bailey was predeceased in death in 2010 by his son, David, and is survived by his wife, Ethel, his daughter Sara Makari and her husband, Victor, daughter-in-law Leslie, and grandchildren Kelcey and Cameron.
Curriculum Vitae
1997
Canon Theologian of the Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh, PA USA
1995
Author and Lecturer in Middle Eastern New Testament Studies (with residence in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, USA)
1985-95
Research Professor of Middle Eastern New Testament Studies The Ecumenical Institute for Theological Research, Tantur, Jerusalem
1990-95
Canon Theologian in Residence with the Episcopal Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf, Nicosia, Cyprus
1992
Visiting Professor of New Testament Dubuque Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa, USA
1988-91
Professor of New Testament at the Theological College of the Greek Catholic Church Beit Sahour, West Bank, Israel
1987, 92
Listed in Who's Who in Biblical Studies and Archeology (Washington Biblical Archeological Society, 1987, 1992)
1986
Invited into membership of Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas
1984-90
Adjunct Professor of New Testament, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois, USA
1985
Adjunct Professor of New Testament, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Professor of New Testament, The Near East School of Theology, Beirut, Lebanon
1974-84
Founder and Director of the Institute for Middle Eastern New Testament Studies, Beirut, Lebanon
1975-76
Adjunct Professor of New Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California, USA
1967-74
Associate Professor of New Testament, The Near East School of Theology, Beirut, Lebanon
1972
Awarded the degree of Doctor of Theology (New Testament), Concordia Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
1962-65
Instructor in New Testament, Cairo Evangelical Seminary, Cairo, Egypt
1961
M. Th. (Systematic Theology), Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
1955-57
Full time Arabic study at the School of Oriental Studies, The American University, Cairo, Egypt
1952-55
Master of Divinity, Pittsburgh Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
1948-52
Bachelor of Arts (Philosophy), Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois, USA