Institute for Biblical Research Newsletter
                   (February, 2007)

                                                        By:
                                             Lee M. McDonald

                              http://www.ibresearch.ORG

Lee Martin McDonald, President Acadia Divinity College Acadia University 31 Horton Ave. Wolfville , Nova Scotia B4P 2R6 Lee.mcdonald@acadiau.ca

Michael W. Holmes, Secretary Bethel College 3900 Bethel Drive St. Paul , MN 55112 holmic@bethel.edu

Jeffrey A. D. Weima,Treasurer Calvin Theological Seminary 3233 Burton St. S.E. Grand Rapids , MI 49546 WEIMJE@calvinseminary.edu

 February 25, 2007

 Dear Colleagues:

 I am honored and humbled to come to you in my new role as president of IBR.  I have
admired the significant work of my predecessors in this role, and especially Daniel Block
who has been most helpful in passing on the baton to me and who continues to offer use
ful and gracious counsel regarding the various activities of the Institute.  Dan has accom
plished a lot of legal work for us that now permits us to advance the mission of IBR in
better ways than was possible before and he deserves our heartfelt appreciation. One of
my first observations in this new role is the number of capable persons serving in leader-
ship on our Board.  They are all very capable and dedicated workers and I am honored to
join them in carrying out the mission of IBR.  I will list them all below.

We welcomed some 30 new members to the IBR in Washington DC during our Novem-
ber annual business meeting.  I have welcomed them all and I do hope that you will as
well and continue to invite others to consider membership in IBR.  I have been a member
of IBR for thirty years now and have always enjoyed the fellowship as well as the aca-
demic stimulation from colleagues in our gatherings.  We appreciate the important and
stimulating papers presented in Washington DC by Klyne Snodgrass, Gary Knoppers,
and Robert Stein as well as the capable responses to the papers from Craig Blomberg,
Bill Arnold, and Craig Evans.  Bruce Waltke was a special blessing to all as he shared the
Word and his heart with us in our Sunday worship service. 

We are working on several items already that will eventually prove quite useful to our
work.  As some of you have heard, we have relocated our website and are now trying to
make it more attractive and also include more useful information for our members.  If
you have any information or suggestions to share with us about our website, please con
tact Lynn Cohick and Ted Hildebrant and share it with them.  They are working on it and
we are especially grateful for Ted's careful work here on getting our website up and run
ning.  It will take a while, but it is coming!

Below are the current officers of IBR and I hope you feel free to contact them concerning
any issues or suggestions you would like to discuss.

 Officers:
President:                     Lee Martin McDonald, Acadia Divinity College
Secretary:                     Michael Holmes, Bethel University
Treasurer:                     Jeffrey Weime, Calvin Seminary
Program Chair:             L. Daniel Hawk, Ashland Theological Seminary
Past-President              Daniel I. Block, Wheaton College Graduate School

Editor, BBR                 Richard Hess, Denver Seminary

Board Members:
                                    Bill T. Arnold, Asbury Theological Seminary
                                    Daniel I. Block (as Past President), Wheaton College Graduate
                                                School
                                    Jeannine Brown, Bethel Seminary
                                    Lynn H. Cohick, Wheaton College
                                    Andy Johnson, Nazarene Theological Seminary
                                    Elaine A. Phillips, Gordon College
                                    Brent Sandy, Grace Theological Seminary
                                    Graham Twelftree, Regent University

Thank you for your participation in the IBR and for telling others about the Institute. 
Each year we are blessed to have more biblical scholars join with us to advance biblical
scholarship in the evangelical tradition.  If you know of others who might be interested in
IBR membership, please do not hesitate to contact Michael Holmes with their names.

Later in the year we will let you know more of the specifics about our the program and
the participants scheduled for our November meetings in San Diego, but we can share
with you now that Bishop N. T. (Tom) Wright will be leading us in the homily during our
worship service scheduled for Sunday morning.

Blessings to you all in your journeys of faith and pursuits in biblical research,

Lee

Lee M. McDonald,
President