Interfaith Scholar Weekend 2008
An Exciting Event
In 2008, for the first time, Interfaith Scholar Weekend featured three speakers during one weekend. The topic for the weekend was be “The End of Time: Apocalyptic Visions in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.” The three scholars in that event were Dr. John Collins, Dr. Barbara Rossing, and Dr. Shahzad Bashir.
- Dr. John J. Collins is the Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation of Yale Divinity School. He has published widely on the subjects of apocalypticism, wisdom literature, Hellenistic Judaism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. He has served as the president of the Society for Biblical Literature.
- Dr. Barbara R. Rossing is Professor of New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago. She has lectured and preached widely in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, including keynote addresses at Women of the ELCA theological conferences and synod assemblies. She is the author of two books and numerous articles for journals and magazines.
- Dr. Shahzad Bashir recently joined the Department of Islamic Studies of Stanford University, after having been a member of the faculty of the Department of Religion at Carleton College. He is the author of Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions: The Nurbakhshiya between Medieval and Modern Islam and is completing a book entitled Bodies of God’s Friends: Corporeality and Sainthood in Sufi Islam.
Interfaith Scholar Weekend began at 7:15 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 8 at the Islamic Cultural Center of Fresno, with opening presentations by our three speakers, followed by informal conversations over dessert. On Saturday, Feb. 9 we were at Temple Beth Israel for lectures and discussion from 9:00 a.m. to 2:45 p.m.
Dr. John Collins spoke during a worship service at United Christian Church of Fresno in the evening on Saturday, Feb. 9. Dr. Barbara Rossing spoke in worship services at College Community Congregational Church and at Hope Lutheran Church, and Dr. Shahzad Bashir spoke in the worship service at Wesley United Methodist Church, on Sunday, Feb. 10
Meals were included in the fee for registration for the Saturday lectures. The registration fee for the Saturday lectures and meals (continental breakfast and lunch) was $50.00. Registration for students was $5.00, with scholarships available on request. Attendance at the Friday evening lectures and the worship services was free of charge.
Our speaker for Interfaith Scholar Weekend during Feb. 20-22, 2009 will be Dr. Carol Newsom, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Old Testament at the Candler School of Theology of Emory University.
Dr. Newsom’s current research focuses on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Wisdom tradition, and apocalyptic literature. She is the author of several books, including The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations (Oxford University Press, 2003), and many articles published in scholarly journals. She is highly in demand as a lecturer.
The topic of Dr. Newsom’s lectures in Interfaith Scholar Weekend, February 2009, will be "Imagining Good and Evil: The Bible Debates Three Different Models."
Dr. Newsom has said about that topic, “Although we might think that a religious tradition has a clear understanding of the origin and meaning of good and evil in the world, there are actually multiple models of the relationship of good and evil in the Bible. What I would like to do in these talks is to pick out three quite different ways of understanding good and evil that are all well represented in the Bible, explain and develop them, and to discuss with the audience the ways in which these approaches to envisioning good and evil are helpful in some cases and not so helpful in other cases. We may also want to think about why it may be good that the Bible offers not just one way of thinking about these things but three--or at least three.”
For further information, contact Al Evans.
Phone: 559-435-2690
Email: evansalca@comcast.net