It’s been an exciting period in the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St Mary’s University, Twickenham! We’ve recently published videos of some of the papers from our very successful conference on Jesus and memory, held in June 2016—well worth seeing if you couldn’t be there. They’re available from our Centre conference pages or on YouTube. And three of the core staff of the
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We are delighted to announce a fully-funded PhD scholarship in New Testament studies in our Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, starting in October 2017. Come and work with two from me, James Crossley, Chris Keith and Chris Meredith (OT/HB scholar just joining us from the University of Winchester)—this will be fun! Details on our website, here. Deadline for applications is 7 November 2016. Let us know if you’re interested!
I was thinking I’d write a review/summary of the BBC show In the Footsteps of Judas, shown on BBC1 on Good Friday—but Ian Paul has done such a good job that I’ll simply point you to his blog on the show. In sum: a very worthwhile show with good scholars (Simon Gathercole, Helen Bond, Joan Taylor, Anthony Cane, Peter Stanford) and a good presenter holding the thread together (Kate Bottley, of Gogglebox fame). Well worth an hour of your time—still available for another 25 days on iPlayer here.
Here’s a fine review/response to R. Scott Gleaves’ book Did Jesus Speak Greek? by my friend Will Ross. Will is a fine Septuagintalist, working on a Cambridge PhD at present, and has very helpful things—in agreement and in dispute—to say on this book, which revisits the debate over the language(s) which were around in first-century Palestine and (thus) the probable language(s) which Jesus himself spoke. Well worth reading.
Well, two excellent days of conference are over and we’ve heard some 15 papers and two short reflections on the whole conference, as well as engaging in eight half-hour question and discussion times. It’s been very stimulating with fine talks, passion and a sense of the importance of the issues we’ve discussed. And all this grew out of a conversation over coffee after the morning service one Sunday between Chris Keith and David Parish—on this evidence, let’s have more of those kinds of conversations, please! The conference was
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