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Main Image for Institute of Advanced Theology

Institute of Advanced Theology

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Our Mission

Religion has emerged as a force which cannot be ignored in understanding the world and humanity’s place within it. Whether one’s perspective is that of a social observer, considering what shapes the behavior of people around us, or that of a participant, committed to a particular faith, the growing influence of systems of religious belief has become increasingly apparent since the end of the Cold War.

With this growth of religions there has come an historic challenge. Practitioners need to understand one another; observers need to be able to assess beliefs and practices they personally do not share. Those are the imperatives of living in a pluralistic environment. Religious systems (and many atheist surrogates for religious systems) claim to account for the world, to shape human emotions, and to guide our actions. What happens when many such systems occupy the same land, the same society?  The United States has been on the forefront of creating pluralism; how it should be practiced is another matter.

The Institute of Advanced Theology is designed to create the kind of genuine, critical understanding that will make real pluralism possible. We are not interested in general assertions of the necessity of religious tolerance. Well-meaning and useful though such imperatives are, they do not address the heart of the challenge of religious diversity. What is needed is not mere civility, but mutual understanding.

Our Mission

    The Institute’s mission is to illuminate crucial points of intersection among the world’s religious traditions in order to promote a deeper understanding of both their commonality and diversity. The Institute’s special interest is the first hundred years of the Common Era, in which the seeds of mistrust and intolerance that have plagued Jewish-Christian relations through the centuries were planted. The Institute’s aims are to bring factual evidence and critical analysis to the fore, resulting in a better understanding of New Testament and biblical history; to foster a new spirit of tolerance and cooperation; to improve the quality of religious scholarship and practice through a historically based interdisciplinary program of research, education, and public outreach; to achieve a deeper understanding of the origins of Christianity, from its roots in Judaism; and to develop the potential for collaborative scholarship, bringing together religious leaders, believers, and those who are simply curious, in a shared enterprise of enlightened learning.

    Spring Lecture Series

    "Herod the Great and the Politics that Divide Us"
    February 6th, March 6th, and April 3rd, 2022

     
    • PART 3: Roman Power Politics and Herod Antipas


       

    Fall Lecture Series

    "Herod the Great and the Politics That Divide Us"
    November 14th and December 12th, 2021
    • Part 1: How Rome Made Herod into the King of the Jews
    • Part 2: Slaughter of the Innocents
       
    Leadership

    Leadership

    Bruce Chilton, Executive Director and Founder

    Bruce Chilton is Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College. He is an expert on the New Testament and early Judaism, and has contributed fifty books and more than a hundred articles to those fields of study. His principal scholarship has been in the understanding of Jesus within Judaism and in the critical study of the Targumim, the Aramaic paraphrases of the Bible. Jesus appears clearly as a rabbinic teacher in Dr. Chilton's analysis, on the basis of his study of the Targum of Isaiah, which he has edited and translated in the first commentary ever written on that book.

    Leadership

    Bruce Chilton is Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College, and Rector of the Church of St John the Evangelist. He is an expert on the New Testament and early Judaism, and has contributed fifty books and more than a hundred articles to those fields of study. His principal scholarship has been in the understanding of Jesus within Judaism and in the critical study of the Targumim, the Aramaic paraphrases of the Bible. Jesus appears clearly as a rabbinic teacher in Dr. ChiltonÖs analysis, on the basis of his study of the Targum of Isaiah, which he has edited and translated in the first commentary ever written on that book.

    Dr. Chilton has earned degrees at Bard College, the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, and Cambridge University. Previous to his chair at Bard College, he held positions at the University of Sheffield in England, at the University of Münster in Germany, and at Yale University (as the first Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament.) His books include Beginning New Testament Study (Eerdmans and SPCK), A Galilean Rabbi and His Bible (Glazier and SPCK), The Isaish Targum (Glazier and Clark),The Temple of Jesus (Penn State University Press), and A Feast of Meanings (Brill). With Jacob Neusner, he has written Judaism in the New Testament (Routledge), a trilogy entitled Judaism and Christianity—the Formative Categories (Trinity Press International), and Jewish-Christian Debates (Fortress). He contributed the article on the high priest Caiaphas in the Anchor Bible Dictionary, and for that reason was consulted by academic, governmental, and journalistic reporters at the time of the discovery of the tomb of Caiaphas outside Jerusalem. Recent principal publications include the best-selling Rabbi Jesus, Rabbi Paul, Mary Magdalene, The Cambridge Companion to the Bible, The Way of Jesus, Visions of the Apocalypse, and Christianity – The Basics. His latest book, Resurrection Logic: How Jesus’ First Followers Believed God Raised Him from the Dead was published by Baylor University Press.

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