John W. Rogerson: The Forgiveness of Sins

Emeritus Professor John W. Rogerson (1935-2018) delivered the Lent Lectures 2018 on “The Forgiveness of Sin” between 21 February and 21 March 2018, at Beauchief Abbey, Sheffield.

Wednesday 21 February

Lecture 1  What it’s all about: Defining Sin and Forgiveness

Wednesday 28 February

Lecture 2  Sin and forgiveness in the Old Testament

Wednesday 7 March

Lecture 3 Sin and forgiveness in the teaching of Jesus

Wednesday 14 March

Lecture 4 Sin and forgiveness in Paul

Wednesday 21 March

Lecture 5. Sin and forgiveness: adjusting our theology and reinterpreting our liturgy

David M. Carr: Beyond Original Sin: Genesis on the Emergence of True Adulthood

On April 5, 2018, Professor David M. Carr (Union Theological Seminary) delivered the final lecture in the 2017-18 Killeen Chair of Theology and Philosophy lecture series, at St. Norbert College.

David M. Carr, Ph.D., professor of Old Testament at Union Theological Seminary, invites us to consider the transformative possibilities in the story of God’s creation of male and female humans in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2-3. Carr’s lecture will offer a new reading of Genesis 2-3 as a subtle account of what it means to be a fully adult human, neither all good nor all bad.

The lecture begins at 3:15.

#MeToo Jesus: Jesus as Victim of Sexual Abuse

On 16 January 2018, Dr Jayme Reaves (Public theologian, Dorset) and Professor David Tombs (University of Otago) delivered the joint paper “#MeToo Jesus: Why Naming Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse Matters”, a Shiloh Project lecture at the University of Sheffield.

 

The #MeToo hashtag and campaign created by Tarana Burke in 2007 and popularized by Alyssa Milano in October 2017 has confirmed what feminists have long argued on the prevalence of sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexually abusive behaviour. It has also prompted a more public debate on dynamics of victim blaming and victim shaming which contribute to the silences which typically benefit perpetrators and add a further burden to survivors. As such, the #MeToo movement raises important questions for Christian faith and theology. A church in New York offered a creative response in a sign which adapted Jesus’ words ‘You did this to me’ in Mt 25:40 to read ‘You did this to #MeToo’. This presentation will explore the biblical and theological reasons for naming Jesus as a victim of sexual abuse drawing on earlier work presenting crucifixion as a form of state terror and sexual abuse (Tombs 1999). It will then discuss some of the obstacles to this recognition and suggest why the acknowledgement nonetheless matters. It will argue that recognition of Jesus as victim of sexual abuse can help strengthen church responses to sexual abuses and challenge tendencies within the churches, as well as in wider society, to collude with victim blaming or shaming.

For further reading, see David Tombs, ‘Crucifixion, State Terror, and Sexual Abuse’ in Union Seminary Quarterly Review (1999).

Dale Martin on Ancient, Biblical, and Modern Families

On February 9, 2017, Professor Dale B. Martin (Yale University) gave an open lecture on ‘the family’ in ancient and modern times, at the University of Kent.

The lecture begins at 5:20.

h/t: Taylor Weaver

Carolyn Osiek on Women Disciples, Leaders, and Apostles: Mary Magdalene’s Sisters

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”.

Danna Nolan Fewell on the Destruction of Sodom and Bible-Thumping, Bible-Tweeting Culture

On April 3, 2017, Professor Dana Nolan Fewell (Drew University) delivered a lecture on the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19, and its reception in “Bible-Thumping, Bible-Tweeting Culture”. The lecture was held at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts.

 

Barbara Reid on Mary Magdalene and the Women Disciples in the Gospel of Luke

On July 21, 2017, Professor Barbara Reid (Catholic Theological Union at Chicago) delivered the lecture for the 9th Annual Mary of Magdala Celebration, at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry Continuing Education: “Mary Magdalene and the Women Disciples in the Gospel of Luke”.

Click here for a transcript of this presentation.

Sharon Keller: Sex, Magic, and Death in the Hebrew Bible

Dr Sharon Keller (Hofstra University) delivers talks on Sex, Death, and Magic. The lecture was part of the Orange County Community Scholars Program (OCCSP), podcasted January 5-31, 2016.

The talks are available in m4a audio format:

• Sex, Magic and Death in the Bible: Let’s Start at the Very Beginning
• Take My Wife Please: Marital Relationships in the Biblical Text (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)
• Omens, Oracles & Execrations: in the Bible and the Surrounding World (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
• Sex and the Bible: Maybe Even A Little More Than You Wanted to Know

Johanna Stiebert on Sex between Brothers and Sisters in the Bible and Rape Culture

Associate Professor Johanna Stiebert (University of Leeds) explores sex between brothers and sisters in “Exploring Connections between Rape Culture and the Hebrew Bible: Brother and Sister and Sex in Biblical Text and Popular Culture”, a paper delivered at the University of Chester on June 1, 2016.

Associate Professor Stiebert is the author of First-Degree Incest and the Hebrew Bible: Sex in the Family (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016), which deals in more detail with the same topic.

Jeffrey H. Tigay: Jewish Interpretations of the Canaanite Genocide

On September 24, 2015, Professor Jeffrey H. Tigay (University of Pennsylvania) lectured on “Jewish Interpretations of the Canaanite Genocide”, at Wheaton College.

David Tombs on The Rape and Sexual Abuse of Jesus

Professor David Tombs (University of Otago) presented a Public Lecture at the University of Auckland on July 20, 2016 entitled “Acknowledging Jesus as Victim of Sexual Abuse”.

Feminist and womanist theologians have questioned traditional Christian models of atonement that appear to render God complicit in the extreme violence of the cross, likening Jesus’ crucifixion to a form of ‘divine child abuse’. These models of atonement often reinforce unhealthy attitudes towards the acceptance of sexual violence and abuse.

Professor Tomb’s presentation will link the critiques of atonement to recent research on crucifixion, which re-reads the historical and scriptural evidence on Roman crucifixions to suggest that sexual humiliation and sexual violence were prominent features in this event. This will lead to discussion on the theological and ethical relevance of such an understanding of crucifixion, including its significance in light of recent sexual abuse scandals within the church.

The paper may be listened to in mp4 format, with accompanying visuals here, or the mp4 file may be downloaded here.

h/t: Caroline Blyth

Amy-Jill Levine on The Carpenter, Gender, and Sexuality: The 42nd Annual Antoinette Brown lecture

Professor Amy-Jill Levine (Vanderbilt Divinity School) delivered the 42nd Annual Antoinette Brown lecture on March 31, 2016, at Benton Chapel, Vanderbilt University Divinity School. The lecture also celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality.

Levine’s lecture was entitled “The Carpenter, Gender, and Sexuality: The Use and Abuse of the Gospels in Politics and Piety”. Her lecture looks at what the Bible teaches about rape, adultery, and women’s sexual pleasure. She also discusses the contemporary deployment of the Bible as a weapon: contemporary interpretations of the Bible which result in people dying, such as condemnations of homosexuality and abortion, and domestic abuse. Lastly, she examines the roles and authority of women in the Bible.

The lecture begins at 9:00.

Bruce Wells: Sex Crimes in the Laws of the Hebrew Bible

Professor Bruce Wells (Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia) talks about matters discussed in his recent article, “Sex Crimes in the Laws of the Hebrew Bible,” in an ASOR podcast of April 6, 2016.

Although biblical texts identify a range of sexual behavior as illicit, adultery is the only sexual act addressed in the law collections as a crime. Some scholars have argued that the treatment of adultery in biblical law is better and more favorable toward women than that found in the cuneiform law collections; others have argued precisely the opposite. What is more likely is that biblical law is largely in keeping with how ancient Near Eastern societies other than Israel and Judah handled adultery and should not necessarily be evaluated as either better or worse from a modern perspective.

David Noel Freedman: The Role of Human Beings in the Bible

Professor David Noel Freedman (1922 – 2008) delivers a lecture entitled “The Role of Human Beings in the Bible”, at the Brigham Young University campus on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem on April 20, 1993.

The picture is sometimes shaky and the audio is of average quality.

François Bovon on the Soul in Early Christianity

Professor François Bovon (13 March 1938 – 1 November 2013) delivered the 2009 Ingersoll Lecture on December 8, 2009 at Harvard University, “The Soul’s Comeback: Immortality and Resurrection in Early Christianity”.

The lecture begins at 10:50.