As a recognized scholar in both religious studies and architecture, Prof. Richardson participated in both academic associations as well as non-academic organizations. During his career Prof. Richardson was a member of a number of scholarly associations relating to the study of religious studies. For example, this series documents his involvement in the Society for New Testament Studies, including his involvement in the planning of the Toronto conference in 1980, as well as chair of the seminar “NT Texts in their Cultural Environment” from 1989-1994. Records relating to his involvement as Managing Editor of Studies in Religion published by the Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion and his involvement in the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies will be found at the Queen’s University Archives where the fonds of these organizations are preserved. Records relating to his involvement in the Society of Biblical Literature are preserved in the Society’s Archives at Drew University in New Jersey.
In the 1990s Prof. Richardson was site architect for two archaeological excavations in Israel and records relating to both these excavations will be found in this series. The first of these excavations was sponsored by the University of Rochester and the University of Tel Aviv at the Yodefat Excavations. In addition to his role as site architect, Prof. Richardson was also guest lecturer and participant during the summers of 1994, 1996. During 1996 and 1997 he acted as consultant to a film crew and architects at that site. The files documenting the Yodefat site include correspondence, notes, travel arrangements, and an article submitted to the Globe & Mail documenting the 1996 trip.
The second archaeological site was at Khirbet Cana and was sponsored by the University of Puget Sound, Seattle. Prof. Richardson participated in the summer of 1999 and 2000 in capacities of lecturer and site architect. Prof. Richardson along with his co-architects, prepared reports on their tasks including preparation of drawings of the site and some architectural fragments, mentoring students and making formal educational presentations. Files on this archaeological site contain reports, correspondence, photographs, and original drawings of the site by Prof. Richardson. In addition to these duties, he also led a tour group to the site and to Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
In 2001 he was approached by Dr. Jonathan Reed at the University of La Verne (California) to participate as site architect for possible excavations at Alexandria Troas or at Pisidian Antioch in Turkey for the summer of 2002. One file documents the discussion on this project, but the potential donor withdrew his offer of funding for the excavations and the plans did not proceed any further.
Prof. Richardson also served non-academic organizations in various capacities. Records relating to his involvement in the Ontario Heritage Foundation (OHF) and Visual Bible International (VBI) will be found in this series. In 1994 he was appointed to the Board of the OHF where he served as Chair of the Revenue Generation Task Force, as a member of the Properties Committee, and Co-chair of the Fundraising Committee.
In 2002, he became a member of the Board of Visual Bible International, Inc. (VBI) and chair of its Advisory Committee (2002-2005). VBI, a Toronto-based company, was a publicly traded faith-based media company. The purpose of this company was to produce the Bible in full-scale film format for showing in commercial theatres. The role of the Advisory Committee was to collaborate in the creative development and film producing process relating to the appropriate choice of Books of the Bible. Garth Drabinsky was producer. One film, Gospel of John, was completed and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2003. Records on this activity consist of correspondence, minutes of meetings, newspaper clippings, script and production files for the film Gospel of John as well as Prof. Richardson’s manuscript and slides list for a lecture given in 2002. The company went into receivership in 2005. Preliminary work was done on a second film, Gospel of Mark.