Carl G. Howie ’41

Carl G. Howie ’41, of St. Petersburg, Fla., died on Feb. 11. He had been an ordained Presbyterian minister for 64 years. He was also an Old Testament scholar and author who held a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Howie was born on Aug. 28, 1920, in Lancaster County, S.C., the eighth of nine children. He graduated from Davidson (A.B. history) and Union Theological Seminary (master’s in theology) before he was ordained in 1944. Howie began his ministry as a Navy and Marine Corps chaplain in the Pacific during WWII and in China after the war. Beginning in 1949 and for the ensuing 36 years, Howie served as pastor for Presbyterian congregations in Lynchburg, Va.; Washington, D.C.; San Francisco, Calif.; and Detroit and Dearborn, Mich. Following his retirement from full-time ministry in 1985, Howie served as interim pastor for a number of congregations in the greater Tampa/St. Petersburg area, including a 16-month period as pastor for Peace Memorial Presbyterian Church in Clearwater. Until recently, he regularly taught Bible study classes at Westminister Suncoast Retirement Community, where his wife and he have lived since 2000. While studying at Johns Hopkins in 1947 with Dr. W.F. Albright, Howie was involved with the original verification of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical era documents discovered in caves near the Dead Sea that year. Beginning in 1956, Howie made several trips to the Middle East to study these important historical documents. His knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and other ancient languages enabled him to play a significant role in the early study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Based on his onsite study, he wrote The Dead Sea Scrolls And The Living Church which was published in 1958. Other books he wrote included God in the Eternal Present, Ezekiel Daniel Laymen’s Bible Commentary, The Old Testament Story, and The Creative Era Between The Testaments. In 1995 he organized the Carl Howie Center For The Study Of Science, Art, and Theology at Union Theological Seminary. Howie is survived by his beloved wife of 61 years, Jean Lewis Howie, 6909 Martin Luther King Jr. St., Apt. 382, St. Petersburg, FL 33705-6287; his three children, Gordon, Lewis, and Anna; and his three grandchildren, Kenneth, Claire, and Paul, who all miss him deeply.