Lutherans at Yale: Nils A. Dahl

Everyone on the faculty had one doctorate or more. Henri Nouwen had two. So all the professors were addressed as Mr., except the one woman professor.

Mr. Dahl was not a celebrity New Testament scholar. He did not create headlines with radical, apostate books. Instead he emphasized the text. We were supposed to know about the liberal theories. Dahl studied under the European scholars, including Bultmann, but he disagreed with Bultmann. Like Abraham Malherbe (my Thessalonians professor) Dahl wanted each student to spend most of his time on the text.

Mr. and Mrs. Dahl were very kindly. They lost a baby when they were newly married in Europe, something few people knew about. When they learned our daughter Bethany had a terminal disorder, Mrs. Dahl opened up the locket around her neck and showed us the baby they lost. She always wore that locket.

Bethesda Lutheran Church had been Augustana Synod. The Swedes were fairly dense in Connecticut. So Bethesda had a Swedish service every so often. Paul Holmer played the organ and Dahl preached.