On July 6, 2020, Professors Chris Keith and James Crossley had a Zoom discussion with Professor Adele Reinhartz (University of Ottawa). The subject of discussion is the Gospel of John and the Johannine community, also the subject of her most recent book, Cast Out of the Covenant: Jews and Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John (2018).
The discussion is the tenth in the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible’s 2020 Online Discussion Series.
The fifth of the 2020 CSSSB Online Discussion Series is held on Monday, May 11, at 7pm BST (2pm EST/11am PST). Prof Mark Goodacre and CSSSB’s Prof Chris Keith discuss “John’s Knowledge of the Synoptics.”
On April 13, 2020, Professors Helen Bond and Chris Keith will have a Zoom discussion on Bond’s book due out later this month, The First Biography of Jesus: Genre and Meaning in Mark’s Gospel (Eerdmans, 2020). The discussion commences at 7pm BST (2 EST/11 PST).
The discussion is the second in the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible’s 2020 Online Discussion Series.
On April 11, 2019, the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CenSAMM) hosted a talk by Professor Paula Fredriksen (Boston University/Hebrew University of Jerusalem) at St Mary’s University, Twickenham. A response and exegesis of Mark 13 was given by Professor James Crossley (CenSAMM/St Mary’s University, Twickenham).
“Prof. Paula Fredriksen (Boston University/Hebrew University of Jerusalem) will be discussing her new book When Christians Were Jews: The First Generation at St Mary’s University, Twickenham at 15.00 on Thursday 11th April 2019. Prof Fredriksen is Aurelio Professor of Scripture emerita at Boston University and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University. Censamm academic director, Prof James Crossley (St Mary’s University), will give a response.”
The Better Questions Podcast interviews Chris Keith, Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Mary’s University, Twickenham. While the title of the podcast is “Are the Gospels Historically Accurate?”, Keith takes his cue, perhaps from the lyrics of “11 O’Clock Tick Tock”, and answers other questions:
“What is Social Memory Theory? What assumptions do we have about history? Did people in the first century think about recording history in the same way that we do? Did the events in the Gospels happen exactly as described? How can we know with 100% certainty? Does it matter?”
The interview begins at 3:30:
“We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong”
– U2, “11 O’Clock Tick Tock”
A conference on Luke and Acts, “L’opera lucana (Vangelo di Luca e Atti degli Apostoli)”, was held at the Pontifical Biblical Institute (Rome), from January 21-25, 2018. The papers are in a mix of Italian and English.
Prof. Massimo Grilli, Synchronic / co-textual approaches [Italian]
Prof. Santiago Guijarro Oporto, Diachronic-contextual approaches [Italian]
Prof. Jean-Noël Aletti, The prophetic typology in the Gospel of Luke [Italian]
Prof. Matteo Crimella, The use of the Old Testament in the Gospel of Luke
Prof. Christopher Tuckett, Luke and the Synoptic question [English]
Prof. Christopher Tuckett, Luke and the “Q” source [English]
Prof. Daniel Marguerat, Lucan historiography [Italian]
Prof. Anthony Giambrone, Ecclesiology in Acts [Italian]
Prof. Antonio Landi, The figure of Peter in the Lucan works [Italian]
Prof. Luke Macnamara, The figure of Paul in the book of Acts [English]
Prof. Steven Mason, Luke-Acts and contemporary historiography [English]
Ian Nelson Mills (Duke University) explains what the Synoptic Problem is, and why it is not boring. The video is from the New Testament Interpretation course at Duke Divinity School.
Emeritus Professor John W. Rogerson (1935-2018) delivered the Lent Lectures 2014 on “The Kingdom of God” between 12 March and 9 April 2014, at Beauchief Abbey, Sheffield.
Wednesday 12th March
Lecture 1: What is the Kingdom of God?
Wednesday 19th March
Lecture 2: The Kingship of God in the Old Testament
Wednesday 26th March
Lecture 3: The Kingdom of God in the preaching of Jesus
Wednesday 2nd April
Lecture 4: The Kingdom of God in Paul and John
Wednesday 9th April
Lecture 5: The Kingdom of God and Today’s Church
On May 25, 2018, The Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St Mary’s University, Twickenham held a one-day seminar, “Social-Scientific Criticism and Christian Origins: Past, Present and Future”.
‘Social-Scientific Criticism’ now serves in New Testament studies as an umbrella term for a variety of critical approaches to early Christianity, which include cultural anthropology, social identity theory, social history, ancient and modern media studies, memory theories, human geography, ancient and modern politics, race theory, trauma studies, and others. This conference gathers leading scholars to answer that question and track the progress of the scholarly discourse from initial applications to the current state of the discussion, as well as offer thoughts about the future.
9.10-9.20am Introduction to the Conference
Chris Keith
Session 1 Theoretical Origins and Texts
9.20-9.50am ‘From Honour and Shame to Theorizing Christian Origins’
John Kloppenborg
9.50-10.20am ‘Competitive Textualisation in the Jesus Tradition’
Chris Keith
10.20-10.50am ‘The Letter to Titus as a Site of Memory’
Michael Scott Robertson
Session 2 Violence and Identity
11.20am-12.10pm ‘Violence as Social Currency in Early Christianity’
Sarah Rollens
12.10-12.40pm ‘The Death of John the Baptist and the Sociology of Beheading in the Ancient World’
Nathan Shedd
Session 3 Space and Language
2-2.40pm ‘Diverse Futures of Social-Scientific Criticism of the New Testament: Affective, Spatial, Cognitive and Digital Turns’
Louise J. Lawrence
2.40-3.20pm ‘Apocalyptic Language in the New Testament: Can Cognitive Linguistics Help?’
Jamie Davies
Session 4 Ethnicity, Race and Ideology
3.40-4.10pm ‘Whose Race Needs to be Noted? Further Reflections on Whiteness and Biblical Studies’
David Horrell
4.40-5.10pm ‘Social-Scientific Criticism and the Bible: Investigating Ideological Trends’
Taylor Weaver
CENSORED
Session 5 Politics and Social-Scientific Criticism
5.30-6pm Keynote Address: ‘Cults, Martyrs, and Good Samaritans’
James Crossley
6-6.20pm Respondent: Hannah Strømmen
6.20-6.40pm Respondent: Yvonne Sherwood
Professor James Crossley (St Mary’s University) presents a paper drawn from his book, Cults, Martyrs and Good Samaritans: Religion in Contemporary English Political Discourse (Pluto Press, July 2018). The paper was presented at the CSSSB conference, Christian Origins and Social-Scientific Criticism, on May 25, 2018 (Crossley appears at 2:50) There were two responses to his paper, from Dr Hannah M. Strømmen (University of Chichester) and Professor Yvonne Sherwood (University of Kent), not included in the video.
Dr Simon Gathercole (Cambridge University) delivered the third Lagrange Lecture at the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem, on May 2, 2018, entitled “The Death and Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of Peter”.
Gathercole examines how the Gospel of Peter takes the traditions in the canonical gospels, and rearranges them, in part in order to blame “the Jews”.
Jörg Frey, Professor of New Testament at the University of Zurich, gives his three-part Shaffer Lectures at Yale Divinity School on January 23, 25, and 30, 2018, on “Theology and History in the Fourth Gospel.”
The three lectures are as follows:
Lecture I: “Christology as Theology: The Johannine Approach as a Challenge Then and Now”
https://livestream.com/yaledivinityschool/events/8008919/videos/169152262
Lecture II: “The Quest for the Jesus of History and Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel”
https://livestream.com/yaledivinityschool/events/8008919/videos/169280011
Lecture III: “The Spiritual Gospel: John’s Reworking of the Jesus Story for Deeper Understanding”
https://livestream.com/yaledivinityschool/events/8008919/videos/169534880
There are a few podcasts and radio segments about on the biblical accounts of the birth of Jesus. Here are three:
“What Does History Say About the Birth of Jesus” (December 24, 2017)
“Was Jesus born in a stable?” (December 15, 2010; 11 min)
“Conflicting Christmas Stories” (December 6, 2012; 14 min)
“Is the Virgin Birth based on a Mistranslation?” (December 20, 2012; 12 min)
“The Magi in Matthew’s Gospel” (December 18, 2015; 14 min)
“Christmas in John’s Gospel” (December 14, 2016; 13 min)
Dr Alan Garrow presents a studio version of the paper presented at the NT Research Seminar of the University of Durham on Monday 12 January, 2015 (h/t: Chris Tilling):
“Streeter’s ‘Other’ Synoptic Solution: The Matthew Conflator Hypothesis”
A published version of this paper is available here: Alan Garrow, “Streeter’s ‘Other’ Synoptic Solution: The Matthew Conflator Hypothesis“, New Testament Studies 62, no. 2 (April 2016): 207-226.
However, Mark Goodacre (NT Blog) points out a serious flaw in Garrow’s argument. Garrow argues that that when Matthew uses Luke alone, there is a high level of verbatim agreement; but when Matthew uses Luke and the Didache (which Garrow identifies with Q), there is a low level of verbatim agreement. According to Garrow, Matthew gets distracted when he uses two sources, and is less verbatim. However, Goodacre points out that we would then expect a similar pattern when Matthew uses Luke and Mark. But that is not the case. When Matthew uses Luke and Mark, there is still a high level of verbatim agreement – which is not what we would expect if Garrow’s theory were correct.
On July 22, 2011, Professor emerita Carolyn Osiek (Brite Divinity School) delivered a lecture at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry Continuing Education: “Women Disciples, Leaders, and Apostles: Mary Magdalene’s Sisters”.
Biblical Studies Online 