Descriptive Summary
Administrative Information
Access Points
Biographical/Historical Description
Scope and Content
Separated Material
Descriptive Summary
Title: Victor Gold Collection,
Date (inclusive): 1958-2000
Accession number: GTU 91-7-01
Shelf location: 2/F/6; 2/J/3
Creator:
Gold, Victor
Size: Number of containers: 8 boxes
Linear feet: 3 feet
Type of material: Minutes, correspondence, announcements, course schedules, class materials, newsletters and reports.
Repository: The
Graduate Theological Union.
Language:
English.
Administrative Information
Source and Date
Six boxes donated April 22, 1988, by Victor Gold. One box donated February 24, 2009, by his wife, the Rev. Frances Noreen
Meginness.
Access
Restrictions: 1 file, see Container List, Box 3.
Publication Rights
Copyright has not been assigned to The Graduate Theological Union. All requests for
permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the
Archivist. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Graduate Theological
Union as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply
permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Victor Gold Collection, GTU 91-7-01, The Graduate Theological
Union Archives, Berkeley, CA.
Access Points
Graduate Theological Union --Faculty
Graduate Theological Union --Library
Graduate Theological Union --History --Sources
Graduate Theological Union --Curricula
Graduate Theological Union --Administration
Interdenominational cooperation --California --Berkeley
Theology --Study and teaching (Graduate) --California --Berkeley
Theology --Study and teaching --History --Sources
Bible --Study and teaching --History --Sources
Biographical/Historical Description
Victor Roland Gold was born September 18, 1924 in Garden City, Kansas. He graduated from Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa,
in 1945 and from Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa, in 1946. He received his doctorate in Old Testament studies
from John Hopkins University (1951), a student of William Foxwell Albright. He served congregations in Texas, Maryland and
Michigan prior to his call as an Associate Professor of Old Testament at the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley,
CA in 1956. He taught there for over 50 years. A student remembers that he opened his classes by saying, "I'm still doing
this because I am still learning new ways of understanding the Bible-from you, my students." He died September 17, 2008,
in Oakland, CA.
Prof. Gold participated in many prominent excavations, including Lachish and Beer Sheva. Among his writings, he provided
annotations on Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah for the first editions of the Oxford Annotated Bible and has more than 200 entries
in the Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible. He chaired the committee of the National Council of Churches that created the
Inclusive Language Lectionary.
Prof. Gold was an active participant in the founding and development of the Graduate Theological Union. By 1958, the seminaries
in the Berkeley area had begun to discuss the possibility of a cooperative program. He participated in the Interseminary
Committee on a Cooperative Graduate Program. It was from these discussions, and the work of this committee, that the Graduate
Theological Union was formed and eventually incorporated. Prof. Gold continued his participation in the GTU through the work
of various committees, such as a dean's search committee that brought Dr. Claude Welch to become dean of the GTU; the committee
which worked to form the Common Library; and the committee to work on the internal structure of the GTU, the faculty, and
the curriculum. Gold also served as Convenor of Area I, Biblical Studies; and coordinated the common GTU introductory course
in Biblical Studies.
(Biographical information from Tim Fries, "Victor Gold," Obituaries of members of the American Schools of Oriental Research,
www.asor.org/updates/obituaries.html accessed February 24, 2009.)
Scope and Content
The material is arranged as received from the donor. File folders retain the original headings, with the exception of loose
materials received February 24, 2009. Nearly all items reflect Prof. Gold's personal involvement in the GTU.
SEE ALSO: GTU 90-5-03, GTU Oral History Collection.
There are audiotapes and typed transcripts of oral history intervews with Victor Gold on
the formation and early years of the GTU. See the
online version .
SEE ALSO: Area I
collection, GTU 92-1-01.
Separated Material
Copies of the GTU Library Program and GTU Master Plan from 1971 were transferred to GTU 94-6-1.