Garden City ? After traveling the world and retiring once, a Garden City Community College professor returned to the classroom to share his enthusiasm with others.

Roger Hamilton has channeled his enthusiasm for life and the Bible into a class on biblical archaeology, which he has taught every spring semester at the school since 1996.

Though he holds a master’s degree in agronomy, he has had an interest in the Bible all his life. Hamilton grew up in a family that read the Bible and prayed every day. Worshipping in the small Methodist church nearby was a social event. He taught the Old and the New Testament as history for several years at Garden City Community College.

In 1984, his biblical interest also led Hamilton and his wife, Grace, to visit archaeological digs in Israel for nearly a month. Hamilton said the trip revolutionized his teaching of the Old and New Testament.

One day in 1994, he was going through papers one day when he ran across some notes from archaeology classes he had taken.

“I was going through them one day and was going to throw them away, really,” he said.

Instead, he resurrected the notes and melded his interests to create a course on biblical archaeology. The college accepted the class and listed it as a state-approved history elective, and Hamilton has been teaching it since.

“Biblical archaeology as a science or as a study, has been going on for about 100 years,” Hamilton said. “But, you see, it encompasses history 5,000 years ago.”

The class takes a chronological approach to history, but Hamilton also promotes the class as one in which students can read the newspaper with one hand and the Bible with the other. Through the class, he relates how the Bible ties in with what is going on in Middle East archaeology and current violence. Hamilton said Palestine often uses archaeology to try to prove which land should belong to Palestine and which should belong to Israel.

“It’s become a political thing between the two nations,” he said.

Students in his class will talk extensively about the conflict between the two groups.

Hamilton’s face lights up as he describes the class and his enthusiasm is infectious.

“We just have a fun time at it,” he said. “After all, I’m 79, and it’s just something to keep grandpa off the streets, I tell them.”

Hamilton uses a textbook called “The Stones Cry Out,” which he said takes a layman’s approach to archaeology. He also takes the students to Israel once a week through a video series.

“We give them just enough to tease them so that if they are interested in it, they’ll pursue it,” he said. “Most of them are just interested in the credit.”

But two students have participated in archaeological digs in Kansas and Colorado after taking the class.