As many of you know, my old friend Rabbi Robert O. Miller passed away on July 17th 2021. Rabbi Miller served as Rabbi of Agudat Bris congregation in Temple Texas from 1996 until 2014. Rob and I knew each other online already, but when we met in person at the Knowing YHWH Conference in Florida in 2004 we quickly became very close friends. As it turned out, Rob lived in Temple, Texas, just about two hours from my home.
As we visited in person, we found out we had a lot in common. We were both comic book, sci-fic Fantasy nerds. We even discovered (Rob was about 8 years older than me) that one of Rob’s first job’s had been working at a shoe store about two blocks from the house where I grew up, and where we usually bought my shoes! No doubt we had met in the mid seventies, when he was a young man, and I was a child, and never realized it!
So starting in 2004 and until 2014, Rob and I were the best of friends. When my wife and I went thru a rough patch in 2006, it was Rob who counseled us and saved our marriage (which is now over 31 years old). Rob would come visit, always bringing gifts for my kids, he was like an uncle to them. During those ten years, I would occasionally drive down to Temple to visit Rob, and some time’s Agudat Bris, and occasionally he would drive up to DFW and visit us. Often Rob would drive up to DFW and the two of us would go hit the used book stores looking for interesting theology books, and also make the rounds at the comic book shops (Rob collected Green Hornet and Flash Gordon comics).
Somewhere along the way, I was entrusted with a back-up of Rob’s computer hard drive. The hard drive contains over 750 files, mostly articles Rob wrote between 1999 and 2011. (the earliest and latest file dates). During the years that Rabbi Miller taught at Agudat Bris, he would write his “sermon” as an article, usually with a graphic at the top, to print out and hand out to the attendees at the door. There are literally hundreds of these “articles” on the hard drive. In fact one of them was the guest blog I shared a few days ago by Rabbi Miller Restoring the Feast of Yeshua. It is my intent to share some of these articles as guest blogs from time to time. Perhaps I will find a permenant home for them on the internet at some point.
During his life time, Rob published two books: The Majority Revelation and Spiritual warfare: Equipping Gideyon’s End-time Army (both are on the hard drive in manuscript form).
But Rob had originally intended to publish more books. Two other completed books are on the hard drive, books Rob never got around to publishing. One is titled The Unlikely Kingdom and the other is Mä’eshay HäSheliychiym (A Commentary to the Acts of the Apostles).
One of the files lists two other books Rob had intended to publish: Hebrews, An Inconvenient Book and The Mystery Scroll of Enoch. File folders with incomplete work on each of those two books is on the hard drive. From the content, these appear to be intended as commentaries to Hebrews and the Book of Enoch.
Rob had told me he was working on a Commentary on the Book of Enoch as early as 2004. We even discussed writing it together, but that never happened. From the contents of this folder, Rob struggled with this book and eventually must have given up. There are several files of rewrites of the Introduction and the Commentary on the Book of Watchers section. He also had some preliminary work on the Book of Parables section and the book of Dream Visions section, and on Chapter 101 of the Epistle of Enoch.
Now Rob is gone, and I must consider what to do with this unpublished and unfinished material with which I was once entrusted. I cannot help but feel some obligation here. This is virtually all that is left of my old friend. I keep asking myself, should I just move on, or do I have some personal obligation to complete Rob’s legacy and release some of this material in some form?
I would appreciate any feedback. You can post it here, or privately by email to cleartruth “at” yahoo.com
Shalom Rabbi Trimm
I encourage you to publish everything, the Nazarene movement is still fragile and we need food, it would be a shame to lose all these teachings. With your permission, I would like to translate your books and those of Rabbi Miller into French to feed the French-speaking Nazarenes.
Thank you.
Shalom uvracha
Ezra
Thank you, Rabbi Trimm for your dedication to Rabbi Miller, even after his passing.
I think that you should share Rabbi Miller’s writing because he had a large following of people on Facebook that were hungry for the word. If his family would permit it, perhaps you can take over the Facebook page in his memory or create one and continue to share his writing and sermons with us. You can also consider the publication of his complete works, and co-authoring the unfinished ones. You knew Rabbi Miller better than most, so you understand his viewpoint on many spiritual matters. Please don’t let his incomplete work go unfinished. Also, the sermons can be compiled and published.
Shalom!