In Memoriam: Jane Hepburn Barr, 1927-2016

Jane Barr, a former lecturer in church history at the Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee, died last month in Claremont, California. She was 89 years old.

A native of Perth, Scotland, Barr was the valedictorian of her graduating class at Perth Academy and later earned a master’s degree at the University of Edinburgh. There she met her future husband, James Barr, who later was the Distinguished Professor of the Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt Divinity School.

The couple moved to Nashville in 1989. Jane Barr taught two seminars at the Divinity School: Women in Church and Society to 500 C.E. and Women in Church and Society from 500 to 1400. The Barrs retired from teaching in 1998 and moved to California.