JAMES BARR (1924-2006) passed away on 14 October, according to a report on the Agade list. Requiescat in pace.

UPDATE: Obituary here. (Also via the Agade list.)

UPDATE: Mark Goodacre notes another obituary in the London Times.

Also, Ed Cook recalls a visit by Professor Barr to UCLA. I also remember a lecture by Barr in Segert's UCLA postgraduate seminar (it it must have been in the early 1980s), but my recollection is that it was debunking supposed Persian influence on Second Temple Judaism, so perhaps this was a different visit.

Of Barr's many works, the one that has helped my research the most is his small but very important monograph entitled The Typology of Literalism in Ancient Biblical Translations (MSU 15; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979). I draw on it quite a bit, along with a couple of his technical articles, in this article.