Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 51:1 (Mar 2008)
Article: The Middle Years Of The Journal Of The Evangelical Theological Society
Author: Ronald Youngblood

---

JETS 51:1 (March 2008) p. 7

The Middle Years Of The Journal Of The Evangelical Theological Society

Ronald Youngblood

Ronald Youngblood is emeritus professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Bethel Seminary San Diego, 6116 Arosa Street, San Diego, CA 92115–3902. These remarks were originally delivered at the banquet of the 59th Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society on November 15, 2007 in San Diego, CA.

Fellow ETS members and friends, my wife Carolyn and I want to welcome you to San Diego, “America’s Finest City” (at least according to the San Diego Chamber of Commerce). We’re glad you’re visiting us this month rather than last month. As a local columnist recently stated, “There’s just one little thing that the Chamber of Commerce seems to have left out of the brochure: It turns out that America’s Finest City is also America’s most flammable.”1 Despite the dangers implied in such an assessment, Carolyn and I decided to move here from Wheaton, Illinois, in 1982, exactly 25 years ago. Wheaton College’s Alan Johnson, whose excellent review of the earliest years of BETS and JETS you have just heard, was ETS president in 1982. Our presidents used to tell jokes back in those days, and Alan’s were some of the best. Since I’m not noted for having a sense of humor, my remarks thus far are the most hilarious you will hear from me tonight. But I digress.

I hold in my hand a copy of Volume 28, Number 5, JETS 1985. It’s the silver anniversary index issue, and it was therefore the fifth issue published that year. You may well ask, however, “Why 1985? Why not 1982?” Please. Have you so soon forgotten how often my irrational insistence on letter-perfect final page proofs caused JETS to be published in something other than “in a timely manner”? Indeed, one of our members used to refer to our Journal as PROPELLERS rather than as JETS, and with some justification—although I’m not sure what P-R-O-P-E-L-L-E-R-S would have been an acronym of. But in the case of the index issue date I can probably blame its author, John Wiseman, who compiled it under my direction as his Master of Theology thesis when he was my student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1982. In addition to five article indexes, three book-review indexes, and a Scripture index, Wiseman included three tables covering the years 1949–82:membership statistics, presidents, and meeting locations and themes. An especially valuable feature is Wiseman’s Introduction, which provides a fine 20-page summary of the history of our Society from its inception through 1982. I’ve already recommended to Andreas Köstenberger

JETS 51:1 (March 2008) p. 8

visitor : : uid: ()