Associate Professor Emeritus of Religion
Bill Poehlmann grew up in Texas and went to Texas Lutheran College, majoring in German and undergraduate suspicion. Then he came North to Luther Seminary-dropping out for one year to Germany-taking away a BD in 1968. Harvard University gave him five years and a Ph.D. in New Testament and Christian Origins; he gave it a dissertation on early Christian wisdom in the Teachings of Sylvanus. Art and archaeology interests led him to digs in Israel and Macedonia, while the job market brought him to St. Olaf. His wife is a medical librarian in Washington, D.C., and their children are in and out of college, in and out of their large Victorian house that always needs work. Since he likes dirt, digging, plants, buildings and home-made stuff, his professional work and classes tend to be about how people did and do their religion as well as how they talk or write about it.