The Department of Religious Studies faculty, staff, students, and emeritus professors are mourning the loss of Professor Emeritus J. Kenneth Kuntz, who passed away on Friday, December 8, 2023. Dr. Kuntz earned his Th.D. from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, working under the mentorship of Dr. James Muilenburg, and in 1967 he joined our department, then named School of Religion as an Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies. Dr. Kuntz’s focus in scholarship and teaching was Old Testament literature, history, and thought, with a special emphasis on the Psalms. Ken was a valued member of the department for 39 years, and a beloved friend beyond his tenure.

In 2021, Dr. Kuntz was honored with a Festschrift entitled “Biblical Wisdom, Then and Now”, with entries from a few of Ken’s former students and colleagues. Below are excerpts from the Foreword by Alan J. Hauser:

I was Ken’s first PhD student to complete the graduate program in the School of Religion at the University of Iowa. I remember vividly my initial meeting with him as I began my doctoral program in August 1968. Ken was welcoming, supportive, and friendly as he and I discussed the graduate program I hoped to pursue, focusing on biblical studies, especially the Old Testament. His warmth and openness immediately made me feel at home, and for that I will always be grateful. I also recall his enthusiasm for wisdom literature, which led him to gently nudge me into the seminar on wisdom literature he was preparing to teach that fall. It became quite clear that his interest in wisdom ran broad and deep, and was contagious.

As his graduate student, one of the things thatimpressed me immediately about Ken was hi openness, indeed eagerness, to consider new ideas and approaches. After an almost fifty-year career teaching biblical scholarship at a state university and being an active participant in Society of Biblical Literature regional, national, and international conferences, I must say that Ken is one of the most open-minded biblical scholars I have ever met. I am not saying he will always agree with new ideas and new approaches, but he will always give them careful consideration, think them through, learn from them, and incorporate them when reasonable into what he is doing. Scholarship in the 1990s, and now in the new millennium, has been trending more and more in that direction, but in the 60s, 70s, and 80s that was not easily found, as scholars tended to group themselves into schools, defending resiliently their own ramparts of scholarship. Ken, on behalf of all your graduate students, I say “Thank you for this skill in interacting so constructively with your graduate students.”

Wisdom literature has clearly been one of Ken’s primary interests. [His] interest in wisdom in the Psalms also led him into numerous studies and articles focused around the Psalms as well as biblical Hebrew poetry. The articles in this volume clearly are reflective of Ken’s openness to embracing new perspectives for studying and making use of biblical literature. Wisdom not only had something to say to the ancient Israelites; it clearly has something to say to us today. That many of Ken’s doctoral students are included in this volume, presenting articles applying ancient Israelite wisdom to the problems and issues we face today, is a tribute to the scholarly broadmindedness Ken has always instilled in his graduate students. That some of Ken’s colleagues are also included is a tribute to his kindness and a testimony to the esteem in which he is held. It is an honor to celebrate with Ken these fruits of his many years of teaching and scholarship.