Professor emeritus of English Jonathan Bishop, who helped initiate Cornell's first-year writing seminars, died Jan. 22 at age 82 at Kendal at Ithaca, where he had been a longtime resident. His research and teaching focused on American literature and the Bible as literature.

Born in 1927 in Paris, Bishop attended Harvard University from 1944 to 1946 before joining the Army to serve as a medical technician to troops and Asian refugees after World War II. He returned to Harvard to complete his undergraduate and graduate studies, married recent Radcliffe College graduate Alison Lurie, now the F.J. Whiton Professor Emerita of American Literature at Cornell, in 1948 (they divorced in 1985), and received his Ph.D. in English at Harvard in 1956.

After teaching at Amherst College and the University of California-Los Angeles, he joined Cornell's Department of English in 1961. A longtime member of the Cornell Catholic Community, Bishop had a strong interest in religion, which led to teaching courses and writing several books on themes from the New Testament.

His books included "Emerson on the Soul" (1964), "Something Else" (1972), "Who Is Who" (1975) and "Covenant: A Reading" (1983). His last book, "In Time" (1999), explored the concepts of timeliness, timelessness and immortality in modern poetry and the Bible.

Intensely interested in helping young people to express themselves in writing, Bishop co-founded Cornell's Freshman Humanities Seminar in 1966 and served as its director from 1978 to 1982. The program became the multidisciplinary First-Year Writing Seminar Program, a required course for all new students and a major part of the Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines.

Bishop was politically active at Cornell in the 1960s and 1970s, in efforts to ease racial tensions on campus and in calling for an end to the Vietnam War. He also helped to redefine the role of religion in the university.

After his retirement and appointment as professor emeritus, he devoted himself to independent study and volunteer work with local charities, including the Loaves and Fishes community kitchen. He also offered spiritual counseling to prisoners and retirement home residents.

Bishop is survived by his brother, his three sons and three grandchildren.

Donations can be made in Bishop's memory to Loaves and Fishes, 210 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca, NY 14850; or at http://www.loaves.org/.