James Muilenberg

James Muilenberg (1896–1974) — one of the preeminent Old Testament scholars of the twentieth century, long associated with Union Theological Seminary in New York. His 1968 presidential address to the Society of Biblical Literature, "Form Criticism and Beyond," launched the field of rhetorical criticism of the Hebrew Bible and redirected a generation of scholarship.

For a Lutheran theologian of Herbert's formation, being one degree from Muilenberg — through Elliot & Patti Daley's Princeton connections — places Herbert adjacent to one of the defining voices of mid-century biblical scholarship.