I JUST GOT BACK from the funeral of Professor William McKane at Cameron Kirk, just outside St. Andrews. My retired colleague, Dr. Robin Salter, gave a moving address on Willy's life. Willy served as the Dean of the Faculty of Divinity and the Principal of St. Mary's College. He was a native of Dundee who started out in a business career but then decided to go into the ministry. Then the War intervened and he served in the RAF in 1941-45. He entered St. Andrews for an honors degree in (I think) philosophy and history in 1946 and was ordained in 1949 in the Succession Church (which later rejoined the Church of Scotland, in part because of Willy's efforts at a reconciliation). He studied Semitics at Glasgow University, getting a first-class honours degree there in 1952, followed by a Ph.D. in 1956. Then he taught at Glasgow as a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer before moving to take up the chair in St. Andrews. He was an international authority on the prophetic and wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible and published commentaries on Proverbs, Jeremiah, and Micah. He had many honors (I got lost trying to copy the list), including the FBA and being president of the Society for Old Testament Study (SOTS). A Festschrft was published for his 65th birthday. He was also an avid sportsman who played cricket into his 60s. He had a reputation for tenaciousness. Robin told a number of stories about him, but I'll just repeat one here: Once on a train trip he had difficulty getting the train door open at his stop, but he kept at it until he actually tore the entire door off the train. The next morning as he was catching the train back, the station master told him not to use that door (which was taped or tied or something back on) because some silly fool had pulled it off.

The presiding minister was Rev. Alan McDonald, who told us that on last Friday Willy worked for the last time on his commentary on the Book of Job. The passage he was working on was Job 33:31-33, which is as fitting an epitaph (so to speak) as one could ask for:

31: Give heed, O Job, listen to me; be silent, and I will speak.
32: If you have anything to say, answer me; speak, for I desire to justify you.
33: If not, listen to me; be silent, and I will teach you wisdom.