Thursday, July 09, 2009

John Sweet (1927-2009)

I am sorry to be sharing the news of the death of John Sweet on 2 July. I heard the sad news when in Cambridge earlier this week. Selwyn College makes the announcement here:

Revd Canon Dr John Sweet

They have a book of condolences. I will add references to obituaries as they appear, but I have not seen any yet.

I met John Sweet for the first time at the SNTS Strasbourg in 1996 where he showed me great kindness. It was my first ever conference and I felt like a little fish in a big pond. Many of the scholars there were stuffy and unfriendly, some were rude. But John was generous with his time, charming and delightful. He was a contemporary of Michael Goulder's at Eton, and they shared a life-long friendship and admired one another's scholarship. He was a fine scholar and a real gentleman and will be greatly missed.

1 comment:

Drew Tatusko said...

I had not heard of this.

His commentary on Revelation was really my first true entre in to biblical studies about 15 or so years ago. Truly spurred me to learn more and I have consulted it since.