Background
Dillard was born on 7 January 1944 in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of Raymond and Ruth Dillard.
Dillard was born on 7 January 1944 in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of Raymond and Ruth Dillard.
After graduating from High School in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 1962, he went to study at Bob Jones University (Bachelor 1966), Westminster Theological Seminary (Bachelor's Degree 1969), and Dropsie University (Doctor of Philosophy 1975).
He did postdoctoral research at Temple University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Tel Aviv University. He taught at Westminster Theological Seminary as professor of Old Testament language and literature from 1971 until his death in 1993. He also held memberships in the Evangelical Theological Society and in the Institute for Biblical Research.
Among his major academic publications were an extensive commentary on 2 Chronicles published as part of the Word Biblical Commentary (Dillard 1988), a commentary on the Book of Joel (Dillard 1992), and his magnum opus, An Introduction to the Old Testament, which he wrote together with Tremper Longman and which was published posthumously, three months after his death (Dillard & Longman 1994).
To his students and colleagues, he was known as a "master of classroom drama" who "captivated mind and hearts". Raymond Bryan Dillard died of a heart attack on October 1, 1993, in the woods near Zionsville, Pennsylvania.
Dillard was a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, where he worked in the Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemia section.