On May 19, 2020, Professors John Kloppenborg and Chris Keith had a Zoom discussion on Kloppenborg’s recent book, Christ’s Associations (Yale UP, Nov 2019).
The discussion is the sixth in the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible’s 2020 Online Discussion Series.
The Theology Programme at the University of Otago is offering three free Zoom talks on selected Biblical topics: The sexually abused Jesus, Passover traditions in the Bible, and New Testament house churches.
Each session will involve input followed by facilitated discussion.
Click links to enrol:
Tuesday 7 April, 7:30-8:30pm (NZ Time; 8:30-9:30am UK Time)
David Tombs: Seeing His Innocence, I See My Innocence: Responses to Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse
Wednesday 8 April, 7:30-8:30pm (NZ Time; 8:30-9:30am UK Time)
James Harding: Biblical traditions relating to Passover (Recorded)
Thursday 16 April, 7:30-8:30pm (NZ Time; 8:30-9:30am UK Time)
Paul Trebilco: House Churches in the First Century: Community in the New Testament
On April 30, 2019, at Duke Divinity School, Professor Joel Marcus delivered his retirement lecture, “Thoughts on the Parting of the Ways Between Judaism and Christianity”. The lecture commences at 2:30.
An audio version, with an introduction by Ian Mills and Laura Robinson, is available care of New Testament Review.
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.”
On Tuesday 30 October 2018, at St Paul’s Cathedral (London), Professor Helen Bond (University of Edinburgh) and Professor Joan Taylor (King’s College, London) discussed the roles of women in early Christianity, beginning with Jesus’s female disciples: “My Soul Glorifies the Lord: Jesus’ female disciples”.
“The traditional story of the birth of Christianity is dominated by men. It is often thought that Jesus only chose men to be his disciples and apostles, but evidence suggests that this is really only half the story. Were female disciples in fact crucial to the Jesus movement? Profoundly scandalous at the time, the idea remains highly controversial 2,000 years later. Two distinguished early church historians will present research that shows as many as half of Jesus’ disciples were women. They say the evidence shows that women were integral to his mission and only if we see men and women working together do we see the whole story, revealing the early church as far more radical than we thought.”
0:05 Andrew Carwood, chair
7:10 Helen Bond – opening address
23:10 Joan Taylor – opening address
35:55 Helen Bond – second address
52:35 Joan Taylor – second address
1:03:25 Helen Bond, Joan Taylor, and Andrew Carwood – Panel Q&A
In 2000, Professor Paula Fredriksen (Boston University) delivered a lecture in the Princeton centenary lecture series, Frontiers of Knowledge, on the topic of “Jesus, Paul, and the Origins of Christianity”.
She is introduced by Professor Martha Himmelfarb (Princeton University). Professor Fredriksen’s talk begins at 5:50.
On September 10, 2016, Professor Larry Hurtado (University of Edinburgh) delivered a lecture at the Lanier Theological Library in Houston, Texas: “A New and Mischievous Superstition: Early Christianity in the Roman World”.
The lecture covers material from his recent book, Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World (Waco: Baylor University Press, September 2016).
In the Roman world in which Christianity first emerged it was viewed as different and dangerous. And Christianity was distinctive. Christian’s were called atheists and regarded as impious, because they refused to worship the traditional gods. Unlike other religious groups of the day, they had no shrines, altars, images or priests. Reading and disseminating texts were central activities. Early Christianity comprised a new kind of religious identity that wasn’t tied to ethnicity. Unlike traditional Roman-era religion, Christianity also made ethics central. But, ironically, all these things that made early Christianity distinctive, even odd, in the ancient Roman world, have become commonplace assumptions about “religion” for us. This lecture addresses our cultural amnesia, showing how early Christianity helped to challenge the ancient world and helped to shape our world.
Destroyer of the Gods was also the subject of a panel discussion at Lanier Theological Library, on September 9, 2016. The panel included Carey Newman (Baylor University Press), Rubel Shelly (Lipscomb University), and Christian Eberhart (University of Houston), with Mark Lanier as Moderator.
Further, Professor Hurtado is interviewed about Destroyer of the Gods by:
Professor Hurtado also notes his article in Catalyst, which draws on some of the material in Destroyer of the Gods: “The Distinctiveness of Early Christianity” (October 5, 2016).
Professor Jason BeDuhn (Northern Arizona University) delivered the 50th Anniversary Distinguished Alumni Lecture at Indiana University Department of Religious Studies on October 16, 2015. The lecture was entitled “The Secret History of Early Christianity: Jesus – Paul – Marcion – Mani – Augustine.”
This talk surveys the rapidly shifting picture of early Christianity, and how it is reflected in the contributions of Dr. BeDuhn to the field since he completed IU’s first Ph.D. in Religious Studies twenty years ago. Through these recent developments, the historical study of Christianity may finally be escaping the grip of assumptions shaped by the normative tradition of triumphant orthodoxy.
The lecture commences at 8:20.
The latest Biblical Studies Online podcast (BSO06) is now available on iTunes for download here or, for non-iTunes users, here. It is an interview with Ward Blanton, Reader in Biblical Cultures and European Thought, University of Kent. Blanton talks about Paul, politics, philosophy, Jewishness, revolutionary thinking, Pauline studies, and his book, A Materialism for the Masses: St Paul and the Philosophy of Undying Life (Columbia University Press, 2014).
Professor Adele Reinhartz (University of Ottawa) presented a paper at Boston College on April 8, 2014 on how the Gospel of John informs the debate about the separation of Christianity from Judaism.
The question of when and how the Jesus movement—one first-century Jewish group among many—became a separate and distinct set of institutions, communities, beliefs, and practices, is perhaps the most contentious issue in the study of early Christianity. A key text in this debate is the Gospel of John, which is thought by many to allude to the expulsion of Jewish believers in Jesus from the synagogue. This lecture examines the ways in which the Fourth Gospel has been used in this debate, and considers the expulsion theory as well as its alternatives in the context of the larger question of the “Parting of the Ways.”
Public lecture by Christoph Markschies on ‘Origen and Paul: the example of their anthropologies’ (recorded May 20, 2014; published December 18, 2014)
From the University of Chicago Divinity School:
A public lecture by Christoph Markschies, one of the world’s leading scholars of early Christian studies: “Origen and Paul: The Example of Their Anthropologies.” Markschies holds the Harnack Chair of Church History (Ancient Christianity) at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, where he also served as President from 2006-2010. Prof. Markschies studied Theology, Classics, and Philosophy in Marburg, Jerusalem, and Munich, and received his doctorate (1991) and Habilitation (1994) from the University of Tübingen. The recipient of multiple honorary doctorates, his many publications include seminal studies of such key figures as Valentinus, Origen and Ambrosius. Prof. Markschies is the Vice-President of the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and a member of the Academy of Erfurt and Heidelberg, the European Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Akademia Europea.
h/t Wayne Coppins
Eerdmans have a series of interviews with their authors, a number of whom are biblical scholars. Featured interviews include:
Francis Watson
James D. G. Dunn
Andrew T. Lincoln
Douglas A. Campbell
A special edition of the 2004 Hayward Lecture series was held on the topic of “Christian Beginnings and the Dead Sea Scrolls”, at Acadia Divinity College. Articles developed from the lecture series were later published in John J. Collins and Craig A. Evans, eds, Christian Beginnings and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Baker Academic, 2006).
John J. Collins, “A Messiah before Jesus?”
Craig A. Evans, “Jesus, John, and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Assessing Typologies of Restoration”
Martin Abegg, “Paul and James on the Law in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls”
Peter Flint, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Biblical Canon”
Glenn Wooden, “Guided by God: Divine Aid in Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament”
Barry Smith, “‘Spirit of Holiness’: An Eschatological Principle of Obedience”
Panel discussion
Biblical Studies Online 