Name:
Steve Delamarter, Ph.D.

Current Position/Academic Assignment:
Professor of Old Testament, George Fox University, Portland, Oregon

Educational Background:
B.A. Seattle Pacific University, M.A.R Western Evangelical Seminary, M.Div. Western Evangelical Seminary, M. A. Claremont Graduate School, Ph.D. Claremont Graduate School.

How did you learn about HMML?
Studying Ethiopian manuscripts I came across an account of the EMML (Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library) project in the 1970’s and of the involvement of the HMML in that project.

Current research at HMML:
Cataloguing and digitizing previously unknown Ethiopian manuscripts in North America. Professor Getatchew Haile has worked closely with us in this project.

Why did you choose to study this—what got you interested in this topic?
I had been to Ethiopia in the spring of studying the sociology of scribal communities. A man near Portland with an old manuscript from Ethiopia called and wanted my help in figuring what the manuscript was. It was a 17th century Ethiopian Psalter. In checking with various dealers on the value of the manuscript, I began to ask about who was interested in allowing their manuscripts to be digitized, catalogued and copies of the images deposited at the HMML. To my surprise many immediately agreed. One thing led to another and in the last two years we have digitized 288 manuscripts (121 codices and 166 magic scrolls).

What has been the most surprising thing you've uncovered in your current research?
Several things. 1. The volume of manuscripts that are being moved out of Ethiopia and into North America. 2. The complex set of scribal practices in evidence in the manuscripts. 3. The changing dimensions of books in Ethiopia across time.

What can we learn from that?
When it comes to manuscripts of their sacred texts, communities of faith take great care to get the correct content, put on the correct material, in the correct process to produce the correct product, all of this by scribes that have been duly trained. Eventually it becomes clear that communities of faith invest their very identity (including their differentiation from other communities) into their manuscripts of sacred texts.

Why did you decide to come to HMML for this particular research?
The people and the resources. Professor Getatchew is the world authority on Ethiopian manuscripts. Father Columba and the staff have been not only helpful, but generous. The HMML has the largest collection of Ethiopian manuscript images in the world.

What did you wish you knew about HMML before you came?
I had no idea of the idyllic setting, the nourishing rhythms of the monastic life and that once I got there I wouldn’t want to leave.

What would you tell someone about your experience at HMML?
Experience at the HMML not only resources your scholarship, it nourishes your soul.

Do you have a favorite book or teacher from your youth that influenced your career/academic path?
Dr. Wayne McCown was a Bible teacher in our area and taught us Bible study method in a way that captured the interest even of young adults. I eventually went to study with him at Western Evangelical Seminary.

What do you read for leisure?
I am an amateur astronomer with an interest in cosmology. I was a fellow in the John Templeton Oxford seminars on Science and Religion for three summers between 2003 and 2005. My wife, Beth Habecker, is a neuron-biologist and we talk a lot about the created order and the place of humans in that created order. Recently we heard a lecture by Francis Collins, head of the National Institute of Health’s Human Genome Project. Collins is himself a vibrant Christian and is working hard to model an integration of faith with the results of his science. Beth and I are teaching a class at our church. One of our primary resources is his book, The Language of God.

If you could travel back in time, what event would you like to experience in person? Why?
As a Christian, it would be very tempting to want to experience the original Holy Week. But for any of a number of reasons, I don’t think I’m ready for that. I think I’d choose something more modest and something in which I could intervene, with the advantage of hindsight, to make things better. It would be something like getting to the caves with the Dead Sea scrolls in them before the Bedouin. I’m not sure it would be my place to try to ward off the events of 9/11, but I would certainly try to communicate to Americans the results of responding to 9/11 in the ways that we have.