"ST. PAUL: FROM ANTIOCH TO ROME" WILL BE THE TOPIC OF THE 2003 LENTEN LECTURE SERIES AT BARD COLLEGE Weekly Series with the Rev. Dr. Bruce Chilton will run from March 12 through April 9
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The 2003 Lenten Lecture series "St. Paul: From Antioch to Rome," presented by the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College, will focus on the last years of Paul's life, from 50 to 64 C.E., the period of his most intensive literary activity. Presented by the Rev. Dr. Bruce Chilton, the weekly luncheon series will meet in the multipurpose room of the Bertelsmann Campus Center at 12 noon, beginning Wednesday, March 12, and continuing through Wednesday, April 9. The cost for each lecture (including lunch) is $10, or $7 for members of the Institute of Advanced Theology. Preregistration is requested.
"St. Paul's letters, as incorporated within the New Testament, attest to how his theology interacted and contended with those of other Christian teachers," says Chilton, Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion at Bard. "At the same time, they are the only sources that are contemporaneous with the ancient congregations they refer to, and offer unique insight into their practices and beliefs. From the perspective both of Paul's development and Christianity's evolution, those letters open the way to understanding how by the end of the first century a loosely knit body of believers called 'the church' was acknowledged to be a religion independent of Judaism." A discussion led by members of the Red Hook Ministerium will follow each lecture.
Bruce Chilton, executive director of the Institute of Advanced Theology, is a scholar of early Christianity and Judaism and the author of the first critical translation of the Aramaic version of Isaiah (The Isaiah Targum, 1987). He has written academic studies that put Jesus in his Jewish context (Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography, 2000; Pure Kingdom, 1996; The Temple of Jesus, 1992; and The Galilean Rabbi and His Bible, 1984). Chilton has taught in Europe at the universities of Cambridge, Sheffield, and Münster, and in the United States at Yale University (as the first Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament) and at Bard College. Throughout his career he has been active in the pastoral ministry of the Anglican Church; he is currently rector of the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Barrytown, New York.
The Institute of Advanced Theology was established to foster critical understanding, based on scholarship, which aims to make true religious pluralism possible. Since its inception in 1996, the Institute’s work has focused on how religions influence history, society, and other religions, and are in turn influenced by them. The Institute gratefully acknowledges support provided by members of the Institute, the Crohn Family Trust, and the Tisch Family Foundation, as well as grants from The Levy Economics Institute and Bard College.
For further information, call the Institute office at 845-758-7279, e-mail [email protected], or visit the website www.bard.edu/iat.
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(2.24.03)