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 Memory and the Reception of Jesus in Early Christianity Conference was held on Friday 10th to Saturday 11th June 2016, at St Mary’s University, Twickenham. Some of the lectures from this conference are now available on YouTube:
Day 1
Chris Keith (read by Steve Walton), “The Memory Approach and the Reception of Jesus”
Christine Jacobi, “The Reception of Jesus in Paul”
Discussion after Keith and Jacobi
Richard Bauckham, “The Psychology of Eyewitness Memory”
Helen Bond, “The Reception of Jesus in the Gospel of John”
Discussion after Bauckham and Bond
Jens Schroeter, “Memory and Theories of History” [lecture is incomplete: cuts off early]
Day 2
Samuel Byrskog, “Memory and Narrative”
Sandra Hübenthal, “The Reception of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel”
Discussion after Byrskog and Hübenthal
Alan Kirk, “Memory and Media”
Joan Taylor, “The Reception of Images of Jesus Prior to Constantine”
Discussion after Kirk and Taylor
Ruben Zimmermann, “Memory, Identity, and Mimetic Ethics”
James Crossley, “The Reception of Jesus in Talmudic Literature”
Discussion after Zimmermann and Crossley
Rafael Rodríguez, “Memory and Liturgy”
Anthony Le Donne, “Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future of the Memory Approach”
Panel Discussion
Professor Willi Braun (University of Alberta) asks “When and Why Did the Gospel of Mark Become a Christian Text?’ in a lecture delivered at the Institut für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft at the University of Hanover, on May 15, 2012.
Professor William Arnal (University of Regina) addresses the question “Just how ‘Christian’ were the first Christians?” with reference to the Gospels of Thomas and Mark. His answer is, not at all. The lecture was delivered at the Institut für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft at the University of Hanover, on May 28, 2013.
Professor Helen Bond delivered her inaugural professorial lecture, and the opening lecture for the 2015/16 academic year at the University of Edinburgh, on September 17, 2015. The title of the lecture was “Paragon of Discipleship or Parody of Kingship? Simon of Cyrene in Mark’s Gospel”. Bond argues that Mark did not present Simon of Cyrene’s carrying of Jesus’s cross as an exemplary act of discipleship, but that Mark employs Simon to further the Gospel’s presentation of Jesus as King.
Helen [Bond] is simply the best New Testament scholar currently in post in the UK.
– Paul Foster
After introductions by Professor Paul Foster (2:05) and Professor Dorothy Miell (3:39), Helen Bond’s lecture begins at 8:00.
The late Professor Richard T. France (1938-2012) delivered the 1989 Annual Moore College Lectures, “Divine Government: God’s Kingship in Mark” at Moore Theological College. Professor France was also the author of the New International Greek Testament Commentary, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Eerdmans Publishing, 2002).
Videos of the lectures in the series are available on Vimeo. All five lectures are also available in mp3 audio format (links below).
1. God rules: the background to the concept of the Kingdom of God
2. Government secrets: Mark 4 and the mysteries of the Kingdom of God
3. Revolutionary government: the “upside-down” values of the Kingdom of God
4. Government and power: Mark 9:1 and the coming of the Kingdom of God
5. The government on his shoulder: Jesus as King
Over eight videos, David L. Bartlett (Yale Divinity School) and Minister Allen R. Hilton discuss the Gospel of Mark.
The conversation is part of the Yale Bible Study Series presented in cooperation with The Congregational Church of New Canaan in New Canaan, CT.
The videos are accompanied by study materials on the Gospel of Mark, made available by the Congregational Church of New Canaan.
Mark, 1:1-3:35: Popularity Breeds Contempt
Mark, 3:7 – 4:34: What Kinds of Kingdom?
Mark, 4:35 – 6:29: Jesus, Thou Art All Compassion
Mark, 6:30 – 8:26: Dense Disciples?
Mark, 8:27 – 10:52: Who is He? Who are We?
Mark, 11:1 – 13:36: A Healthy Insomnia?
Mark, 14:1 – 15:47: A Soldier’s Epiphany
Mark, 16:1 – 8: The Empty Tomb Effect
Professor Richard Bauckham (University of St Andrews) delivered three lectures at Laidlaw College on August 7-9, 2015.
The Authenticity of the Apostolic Eyewitness in the New Testament
Mark’s Geography and the origin of Mark’s Gospel
Jesus and the Wild
Wilderness is a term that elicits both fear and delight. It is in the wilderness that we recognise our vulnerability as humans and also our interconnectedness with other non-human life. Yet, we live in an age where wilderness is rapidly disappearing. Ancient forests are cut-down, mountain-tops levelled, and surging rivers are tamed, as human civilisation spreads across the globe. Does Jesus, whose earthly ministry begins in the wilderness (Mark 1:12-13), care about this loss of wild areas? What would Jesus do about climate-change, acidifying oceans, habitat destruction and species extinction?
Professor Amy-Jill Levine delivered the Comparative Theology Lecture at Harvard Divinity School on October 17, 2012: “From Donation to Diatribe: How Anti-Jewish Interpretation Cashes Out”.
In Mark 12:41-44, Jesus says of a poor widow who makes a donation to the Jerusalem Temple: “she has thrown in her whole life.” Is the widow exploited by a Jewish system that values money over compassion? Is she a faithful worshiper who reveals the Temple’s welcome of rich and poor, male and female? Is she a foreshadowing of Jesus, who will give up his life as a “ransom for many?” The answers depend upon the reader’s sensibilities.
Levine is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies, and Professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and College of Arts and Sciences.
Levine’s lecture commences at 5:57.
Mark Goodacre, Professor of New Testament at Duke University, provides a regular podcast on New Testament scholarship called NT Pod.
The major topics of these podcasts are the Gospels and Jesus scholarship, although Goodacre also addresses topics in Pauline scholarship, the apocryphal gospels, and other aspects of the New Testament. While the podcasts are short and succinct – usually 10 to 15 minutes – they provide clear, accessible, up-to-date, and authoritative overviews of many topics in New Testament scholarship.
Dr. Madeleine Boucher, former professor of New Testament and director of the Women’s Studies Program, Fordham University, presents a lecture examining what the Bible and tradition say about Mary Magdalene (July 22, 2009).
This lecture looks at the conflation of traditions of Mary Magdalene as well as Scripture references to clarify who this “Apostle to the Apostles” was and was not. Special focus is given to the resurrection narrative in John’s Gospel.
A helpful handout is also available for Madeleine Boucher’s lecture.
Timothée Colani’s Jésus-Christ et les croyances messianiques de son temps (1864), particularly famous for his argument that a ‘Little Apocalypse’ underlies Mark 13, is freely available in various forms here courtesy of the University of Michigan’s collections.
Emeritus Professor Larry Hurtado (formerly of the University of Edinburgh) makes available a large number of essays and articles on his personal website. The main topics are Jesus, the theory of early worship of Jesus, and the Gospels.
Examples include:
Son of Man–Hurtado. This is the pre-publication version of my essay published in ‘Who is This Son of Man’? Latest Scholarship on a Puzzling Expression of the Historical Jesus, eds. Larry W. Hurtado & Paul L. Owen (London: T&T Clark, 2011), 159-77.
The Women, the Tomb and the Ending of Mark The manuscript of my contribution published in A Wandering Galilean: Essays in Honour of Sean Freyne, eds. Zuleika Rodgers & Margaret Daly-Denton (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 427-50.
Professor Richard Bauckham’s personal website provides the document files of several unpublished lectures and unpublished essays on Jesus and the Gospels. There are further links to audio and video files of a number of lectures and discussions on Jesus and the Gospels, with the audio of one lecture apiece on Revelation and ecology.
Bauckham is the author of several works on Jesus and the Gospels, including Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (2006). Until 2007 he was Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of St Andrews.
According to the phonetic system used by the Oxford English Dictionary, Bauckham is pronounced Borkem…. For readers in the UK it may help to say that Bauckham rhymes with Morecambe, the name of the great English comedian Eric Morecambe of the duo Morecambe and Wise.
– “How to pronounce the name BAUCKHAM“
Biblical Studies Online 