I write in loving memory of Walter E. Rast, who died on October 10, 2003, at the age of 73, after a heroic struggle with a debilitating illness. Walt had retired in 1996 from Valparaiso University, in Indiana, where he was a professor of archaeology, Bible and religion for 35 years. Walt began as a Missouri Synod Lutheran clergyman, with two graduate degrees in theology, then went on for an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, as well as post-doctoral studies at Harvard with the noted Biblical archaeologist, G. Ernest Wright (who was also my mentor). […]
