Jerry A. Pattengale (born 1958) is a faculty member and
administrator
Administrator or admin may refer to:
Job roles Computing and internet
* Database administrator, a person who is responsible for the environmental aspects of a database
* Forum administrator, one who oversees discussions on an Internet forum
* N ...
at
Indiana Wesleyan University
Indiana Wesleyan University (IWU) is a private evangelical Christian university headquartered in Marion, Indiana, and affiliated with the Wesleyan Church. It is the largest private university in Indiana.
The university system includes IWU—M ...
.
He coined and founded the approach of “
purpose-guided education
Purpose-guided education prioritizes intrinsic motivation and helps students become more engaged in learning experiences through connecting their beliefs and life goals to curricular requirements. Jerry Pattengale first coined the phrase "purpose ...
” in 1997 while leading the implementation of student success programs at
Indiana Wesleyan University
Indiana Wesleyan University (IWU) is a private evangelical Christian university headquartered in Marion, Indiana, and affiliated with the Wesleyan Church. It is the largest private university in Indiana.
The university system includes IWU—M ...
. His approach includes calling for a humanities approach to student success, and the need for faculty involvement in the development of strategies.
In 2007 and 2008, he participated in Roundtable meetings at the White House on compassion efforts through
OFBCI. In 2020, he spoke at the United Nations (NYC) as part of the UN’s Plan of Action to Safeguard Religious Sites. From 2010 to 2014, he served as the Executive Director of the
Green Scholars Initiative while researching historic items in the
Green Collection
The Green Collection, later known as the Museum Collection, is one of the world's largest private collection of rare biblical texts and artifacts,
made up of more than 40,000 biblical antiquities assembled by the Green family, founders of the Am ...
.
Pattengale was one of the two founding scholars and leaders (2010) of the
Museum of the Bible
The Museum of the Bible is a museum in Washington, D.C., United States, owned by Museum of the Bible, Inc., a non-profit organization established in 2010 by the David Green (entrepreneur), Green family. The museum documents the narrative, histo ...
, which opened in Washington, D.C., in November 2017, and served as the museum's Executive Director of Education until retiring in 2018. In the spring of 2020 he returned as Senior Advisor to the President.
In 2019-2020 he served as the interim president and CEO for
Religion News Service
Religion News Service, branded as RNS, is a news agency founded in 1934. It covers religion, ethics, spirituality and moral issues, and publishes news, information, and commentaries on faiths and religious movements to newspapers, magazines, bro ...
and the Religion News Foundation. He co-authored the six-episode TV docuseries (and book), Inexplicable: How Christianity Spread to the Ends of the Earth (TBN, 2020, hosted by Dennis Haysbert).
Recognition
In 1994 he received a National Endowment of Humanities Award to
Corinth, Greece
Corinth ( ; , ) is a municipality in Corinthia in Greece. The successor to the ancient city of Corinth, it is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, ...
, and in 2000 Houghton Mifflin and USC presented him The National Student Advocate Award. In 1993 and 1995 the student body of Azusa Pacific named him Professor of the Year, and in 1994, Alpha Chi (Honors) Outstanding Faculty of the Year. In 2012, while Pattengale was a non-resident Senior Fellow at
Baylor University
Baylor University is a Private university, private Baptist research university in Waco, Texas, United States. It was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Te ...
's Center for the Studies of Religion,
Indiana Wesleyan University
Indiana Wesleyan University (IWU) is a private evangelical Christian university headquartered in Marion, Indiana, and affiliated with the Wesleyan Church. It is the largest private university in Indiana.
The university system includes IWU—M ...
awarded him the World Changing Faculty Award In 2014, it named him its first University Professor since its 1920 founding.
In 2015 and 2016, the Indiana Associated Press Media Editors and the Hoosier State Press Association each honored Pattengale for his newspaper commentaries.
In 2017, he served as a consultant for
Lee Strobel
Lee Patrick Strobel (born January 25, 1952) is an American Christian author and a former investigative journalist. He has written several books, including four that received ECPA Christian Book Awards (1994, 1999, 2001, 2005) and a series whi ...
's film ''
The Case for Christ
''The Case for Christ'' is a 2017 American Christian drama film directed by Jon Gunn and written by Brian Bird, based on a true story and inspired by the 1998 book of the same name by Lee Strobel. The film stars Mike Vogel, Erika Christensen, ...
'' (produced by
Peter Schockey). He has served Indiana Wesleyan University in academic administration since 1997, most recently as Assistant Provost for Public Engagement. In 2021, Pattengale received the Indiana Wesleyan Alumni World Changer Award, in recognition of having made a significant difference in the field of higher learning. In Dec. 2021, The National Press Club awarded him its “Vivian Award” for his long-term service on its membership selection committee.
He currently sits on the boards of
Christianity Today
''Christianity Today'' is an evangelical Christian media magazine founded in 1956 by Billy Graham. It is published by Christianity Today International based in Carol Stream, Illinois. ''The Washington Post'' calls ''Christianity Today'' "eva ...
, Africa New Life (Rwanda), Changing Destiny (Asia), and
The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University (also known as the Jonathan Edwards Centre) is a department of the Yale University Divinity School responsible for publishing and providing scholarly information about the works of Jonathan Edwards (170 ...
, and serves as the Associate Publisher for ''Christian Scholar's Review.'' He holds distinguished appointments at
Excelsia College (Australia), Waverley Abbey College (UK),
Tyndale House-Cambridge,
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and Sagamore Institute.
Personal life
In 1993 he obtained a Ph.D. at
Miami University
Miami University (informally Miami of Ohio or simply Miami) is a public university, public research university in Oxford, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1809, it is the second-oldest List of colleges and universities in Ohio, university in Ohi ...
; his dissertation was titled "Benevolent physicians in late antiquity: The cult of the
anargyroi".
Within his dozens of books and hundreds of news columns are references to his impoverished and adventurous childhood in Buck Creek, Indiana. His mantra among his education books is “The dream needs to be stronger than the struggle,” supported by years of research.
"First Century Mark"
In May 2018,
Dirk Obbink
Dirk D. Obbink (born 13 January 1957 in Lincoln, Nebraska) is an American papyrologist and classicist. He was Lecturer in Papyrology and Greek Literature in the Faculty of Classics at Oxford University until 6 February 2021, and was the head of the ...
and Daniela Colomo published the papyrus fragment
P.Oxy. 5345 in volume LXXXIII of the ''Oxyrhynchus Papyri'' series of the
Egypt Exploration Society
The Egypt Exploration Society (EES) is a British non-profit organization founded in 1882 for the purpose of financing and facilitating the exploration of significant archeological sites in Egypt and Sudan, founded by writer Amelia Edwards and coin ...
. This fragment contained portions of six verses from the first chapter of the
Gospel of Mark
The Gospel of Mark is the second of the four canonical Gospels and one of the three synoptic Gospels, synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from baptism of Jesus, his baptism by John the Baptist to his death, the Burial of Jesus, ...
, and was designated 𝔓
137 in the standard classification of
New Testament
The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...
papyri. Obbink and Colomo dated it to the later 2nd or earlier 3rd century, but rumours of its content, provenance and date had been widely discussed since 2012, fuelled by an ill-advised claim by
Daniel B. Wallace in 2012 that a fragmentary papyrus of Mark had been authoritatively dated to the late first century by one of the world's leading paleographers, and might consequently be the earliest surviving Christian text.
Following publication in 2018, the
Egypt Exploration Society
The Egypt Exploration Society (EES) is a British non-profit organization founded in 1882 for the purpose of financing and facilitating the exploration of significant archeological sites in Egypt and Sudan, founded by writer Amelia Edwards and coin ...
, the owners of the papyrus fragment, released a statement clarifying both the provenance of the fragment and the role of Obbink in the circumstances of misleading information subsequently emerging on social media. The EES stated that the text in the fragment had only been recognised as being from the Gospel of Mark in 2011. In an earlier cataloguing in the 1980s, the fragment had been described as 'I/II', which appeared to be the origin of the much discussed assertions of a very early date. In 2011/2012 the papyrus was in the keeping of Obbink, who had shown it to Scott Carroll and Pattengale, representing the
Green Collection
The Green Collection, later known as the Museum Collection, is one of the world's largest private collection of rare biblical texts and artifacts,
made up of more than 40,000 biblical antiquities assembled by the Green family, founders of the Am ...
and its programs respectively. It was not until the spring of 2016 that the EES realised that the rumoured "First Century Mark" papyrus that had become the subject of so much speculation was one and the same as their own fragment P.Oxy. 5345; whereupon Obbink and Colomo were requested to prepare it for publication.
In the July/August 2019 issue of
Christianity Today
''Christianity Today'' is an evangelical Christian media magazine founded in 1956 by Billy Graham. It is published by Christianity Today International based in Carol Stream, Illinois. ''The Washington Post'' calls ''Christianity Today'' "eva ...
, Jerry Pattengale wrote an article in which he published for the first time his own perspectives on the 'First Century Mark' Saga. Pattengale states that he had been present with Scott Carroll in Obbink's rooms in
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church (, the temple or house, ''wikt:aedes, ædes'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by Henry V ...
in late 2011, when the
Papyrus 137
Papyrus 137 (designated as 𝔓137 in the Gregory-Aland numbering system) is the earliest surviving manuscript of the Gospel of Mark. It is a late 2nd or early 3rd century fragment of the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark (verses 7–9 on the r ...
fragment was offered for sale to the
Museum of the Bible
The Museum of the Bible is a museum in Washington, D.C., United States, owned by Museum of the Bible, Inc., a non-profit organization established in 2010 by the David Green (entrepreneur), Green family. The museum documents the narrative, histo ...
, which Pattengale then represented. Also offered for sale were fragments of the Gospels of Matthew, Luke and John, all of which Obbink had then proposed as likely to be of a 2nd century date; but the Mark fragment was presented as more likely 1st century. According to Pattengale, he had undertaken due diligence in showing images of the four fragments to selected New Testament textual scholars, including
Daniel B. Wallace, subject to their signing non-disclosure agreements in accordance with Obbink's stipulations; and purchase was eventually finalised, with the fragments agreed to remain in Obbink's possession for research prior to publication. It was not until a gala dinner in November 2017, celebrating the opening of the
Museum of the Bible
The Museum of the Bible is a museum in Washington, D.C., United States, owned by Museum of the Bible, Inc., a non-profit organization established in 2010 by the David Green (entrepreneur), Green family. The museum documents the narrative, histo ...
, that Pattengale realised that the First Century Mark fragment had been the property of the Egypt Exploration Society all along, and consequently had never legitimately been offered for sale. He reported this immediately, from the gala. The key backstory and personality profiles in this case are profiled in
The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 185 ...
(May 2020) by Ariel Sabar.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pattengale, Jerry
1958 births
Living people
Indiana Wesleyan University alumni
Wheaton College (Illinois) alumni
Miami University alumni
Azusa Pacific University faculty