became a major topic of his research both during and following that experience in the field. Career In the fall semester of 1967, Kraabel began his teaching career as a member of the faculty of the Department of Classics at the University of Minnesota. He enjoyed the rank of full professor in that department from 1976–82, including three years (1978–81) as chairman of the department. He also served as chairman of religious studies from 1969-76. While on the University of Minnesota faculty, Kraabel spent the academic year 1977-78 as a visiting fellow at Mansfield College, Oxford University, England, and some months in 1981 as a visiting fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford. In 1979, he collaborated with Estelle S. Brettman on the international panel "Diaspora Judaism Under the Roman Empire: Recent Archaeological Evidence," at the American Institute of Archaeology's Annual Conference in Boston, Massachusetts. In January 1983, Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, named Kraabel vice-president and dean of the college, as well as professor of religion and classics. He continued in this position through the 1995-1996 academic year. Subsequently, he taught religion and classics at the college until his retirement at the end of the 1999-2000 academic year. In 1988, Luther College named him to an endowed professorial chair, Qualley Professor of Classics, a position he occupied until his retirement. From 1969-73 Kraabel was associate director, with Eric Meyers of Duke University, of the Joint Expedition to Khirbet Shema', Israel, an archaeological project of the American Schools of Oriental Research. Institutional partners in the project were Duke, University of Minnesota, Harvard, Princeton, Luther College, Dropsie University, and the Smithsonian Institution. He also served as pastor at Our Saviour's Lutheran Church in Minnesota from 1961 to 1963. Death Kraabel died on November 2, 2016, in Decorah, Iowa, after a twenty-eight year long battle with Parkinson's disease. Works Books The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester. Edited with B. A. Pearson, G. W. E. Nickelsburg and N. R. Petersen. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991. Goodenough on the Beginnings of Christianity. Brown Judaic Studies 212. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990. Ancient Synagogue Excavations at Khirbet Shema', Upper Galilee, Israel 1970-72. (Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 42). Durham: Duke University Press, 1976. (With E.M. Meyers and J. F. Strange). Articles "Immigrants, Exiles, Expatriates, and Missionaries," in Religious Propaganda and Missionary Competition in the New Testament World. Ovum Testamentum (Vol. 74),