Walter E. Rast, 1930-2003
A Senior Statesman of Archaeology
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).
From 1963 to 1968 Walt was a staff member on the excavations at Ta’anach in the Jezreel Valley, under the tutelage of the gifted but mercurial Paul W. Lapp. After Lapp’s tragic death in 1970 at 39, Walt took upon himself major publication responsibilities. In 1978 he published Taanach I: Studies in the Iron Age Pottery—a volume that is now widely hailed as a fundamental study in the discussions of “early Israel.” It was years ahead of its time.
Walt also followed Lapp to the third-millennium B.C. site of Bab edh-Dhra on the eastern shores of the Dead Sea, where he was a staff member beginning in 1967, then co-director from 1973 on (with Thomas Schaub). Two weeks before Walt’s death, his two-volume final report, Bab edh-Dhra: Excavations at the Town Site (1975–1981)was published. For more than 30 yearsthe dig at Bab edh-Dhra has been an admirable example of professionalism, focused research design, long-range planning and sheer determination.
Walt loved teaching archaeology and the Bible. He was excited by what archaeology could do to illuminate the world of the Bible, a world in which Walt was a passionate believer. (He organized his own memorial service and wrote his own obituary because he was convinced that he was going to a better place). But Walt was also devoted to the larger professional discipline of Biblical and Syro-Palestinian archaeology. He succeeded me as editor of the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research and as vice-president of ASOR for archaeological policy, responsible for the oversight of more than 30 American archaeological projects in the Middle East.
Over the years, Walt also read dozens of papers of annual meetings of ASOR and other professional organizations, becoming in the process a senior statesman of the discipline. Above all, Walt was respected: He was known not only as a man of impeccable credentials, but as a man of the highest personal principles.
This recitation of just some of Walt’s professional achievements scarcely does justice to the man so many of us remember with great affection. Our several related disciplines are often petty, our politics competetive and even vengeful. Walt Rast rose gracefully above all this, not only by simply producing good work, but by his generous personality, characteristic modesty, warm-heartedness and unflappable good humor.
We shall miss Walt terribly. But I shall always see that sly, crinkly-eyed smile of his, as though he were saying: “It’ll be all right.”