I am visiting THS as a guest professor and researcher from August to November. I am teaching the course on the Historical Jesus with Thomas Kazen and working on a book. I am also leading a colloquium series based on some of my popular articles that explore various topics in the critical study of the Bible (the articles are available through the THS website). This series is open to anyone and I hope you will attend some of the discussions. Läs mer här.
I am on sabbatical leave from Juniata College in Pennsylvania, USA. Juniata College has about 1400 students, most of them studying for careers in science, medicine, and business. Our Religious Studies department has only three teachers, so we must teach a rather broad range of subjects. I teach courses in biblical studies (both Old and New Testament), world religions, and the philosophy of religion.
I hope that in my short time at THS I will have many conversations with the staff and students. I am happy to discuss my work and answer questions about the historical study of Jesus and early Christianity. I am also interested in conversations about how bibical studies can interact with other areas of theology. I am eager to learn about the role of theology and the churches in Sweden and perhaps you can benefit from my experience with these issues in the American context.
My education combined philosophy and religion. I earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Philosophy and a second master’s degree in Religious Studies. My doctoral study specialized in New Testament.
My research and publications have been about the gospels and the historical Jesus. For over twenty years I have been a member of the Jesus Seminar, a North American association of biblical scholars engaged in ongoing, collaborative academic research on the historical Jesus and Christians origins. Unlike other academic research groups, the Jesus Seminar is committed to communicating its work to the public, through our publications and numerous public lectures. The public is always invited to attend our meetings and to question the scholars. Churches all across North America have invited Seminar scholars to conduct weekend programs that reflect on how scholarly knowledge about Jesus and the early church can interact with contemporary Christianity.
My research project at THS focuses on the Christian belief that Jesus was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. In addition to studying the New Testament texts that claim that Jesus fulfills prophecy, I am interested in how the early Christian use of prophetic oracles compares to the different understandings of prophecy in both the ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman worlds. I also hope to analyze how different contemporary Christian groups continue to use these concepts of prophecy fulfillment, especially over the Internet. One of the goals in my research is to explore the anti-Jewish implications of Christian belief in the fulfillment of prophecy, because this belief has almost always been used in a way that implies that Judaism was merely a preparation for Christianity and that if Jews understood the “true” meaning of their scriptures, they would become Christians. These attitudes are a poison in the heart of Christian history and I hope that my research can make a small contribution toward a more healthy relationship between Christiantity and Judaism. |
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