Symposium "The Great Commandment.." 6-8- October in Tübingen

Updates from Tübingen    

by Dennis Lindsay

Our much anticipated international symposium on "The 'Great Commandment' in Early Christianity and its Jewish and Greco-Roman Environment" has now come and gone. From October 6-8 fourteen scholars, both Christian and Jewish, delivered presentations exploring how the double command to love God and to love our neighbor has impacted the lives of God's people from the earliest times, and even up to the present. Proceedings from the Symposium will eventually be published in a bound volume. (Please be patient, and stay tuned for further details!)

At the Institute for the Study of Christian Origins, were especially pleased to host a delegation from our EES board, along with a number of faculty members from the TCMI Institute in Austria. 

This group "launched" the symposium on Sunday, Oct 6 with a brief time of worship and communion in our Institute seminar room, led by Dennis Lindsay.

Loren and Lois Stuckenbruck together with Prof. Tilly and TCMI guest A. Puzynin.

Upcoming Events October 2024

The World    

Updates from Tübingen    

by Dennis Lindsay

This past month Karen and I travelled to Amsterdam where I presented a paper at the International Society of Biblical Literature meeting. The title of my presentation was “The Opposite of Faith in the New Testament.” Looking specifically at the Greek words for “faith” and “unfaith”, I argued that the opposite of faith is not primarily a matter of doubt or an intellectual rejection of certain dogmas and doctrines; rather, it has to do with a deliberate and willful act of abandoning relationship with God. I will be delving deeper into this study in my upcoming Chi Rho Lecture in Eugene, Oregon, October 18–20 (see details below). These lectures will be available via livestream through the Central Lutheran Church website: www.connecttocentral.org

Upcoming Events:
October 6-8, 2024–International Symposium on “The Great Commandment”; Tübingen University
for details please look  at : https://eesinc.org/symposia-and-more
October 18-20, 2024-Chi Rho Lectures: “I Believe, Help my Unbelief”; Central Lutheran Church and Bushnell University, Eugene, OR
for details please look at:
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:bafe6ca4-f86a-4fde-bd23-a7894a339769)

In memoriam Prof. Jürgen Moltmann

The World 

Updates from Tübingen    

by Birgit Hallmann 

Visitors and Guests:
The summer semester is slowly coming to an end and we continue to keep very busy.
In early June we hosted Mircea Paduraru (doctoral student at the University of Bucharest) in the Institute guest room. Mircea was here to make a presentation of his doctoral work for our English-German Colloquium for New Testament. His topic was: „Ecclesiology and Power. Towards an Anatomy of Church Discipline within the Evangelical Churches in Romania.“ Mircea shared the following about his brief stay in Tübingen:

„The experience of staying in the Gastzimmer of Tübingen’s Institut zur Erforschung des Urchristentums was wonderful. The guest room is nice, simple and clean, and the fact that the Institute is situated some two hundred meters away from the iconic Stiftskirche and a five minute walk from the University 's Theologicum gives the place a special aesthetic and spiritual aura. Also the quiet and peaceful working atmosphere and the kind and discrete presence of Birgit and Dennis add to the spirit of the place. It was a rich experience to live and sleep practically in a nice library, surrounded by books, and to work hard and focused, away from daily distractions.“ (Mircea Parduaru, June 2024)

In Memoriam: Many of our readers will fondly remember Prof. Dr. Jürgen Moltmann, world renown for his “theology of hope” and ground-breaking professor of systematic theology in Tübingen from 1967 to 1994. Prof. Moltmann, who had just celebrated his 98th birthday in April, passed away peacefully and without prolonged suffering at his home on June 3, 2024. Moltmann was mourned in the local newspaper as the “last survivor among the great scholars who, during the 1960’s and 1970’s, had made Tübingen’s theology so exciting and so attractive for Christians throughout the world” (source: Schwäbisches Tagblatt, June 6, 2024). A memorial service was held on June 14th in the Tübingen Stiftskirche.

Dr. Leopold Lucas-Prize 2024 awarded to Prof. David Nirenberg (Princeton University)

The World 

Updates from Tübingen    
by Dennis Lindsay

Institute:

The past month has seen a flurry of activity in our work in Tübingen. The German-English Colloquium in New Testament has become a truly international forum of scholars and participants. In the most recent session we had a presentation via Zoom Dr. Edward Wong on the topic: 'The Samaritan Woman as a Perpetual Foreigner: An East Asian Immigrant Reading of John 4." Dr. Wong is a Chinese scholar who recently completed his Ph.D. at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Colloquium participants included individuals from Germany, South Korea, South Africa, USA, Austria, and India (online participant).
This month we were also pleased to welcome Dr. Tony Twist, President of the EES and TCM, along with Vice President Christian Witzmann, for a brief visit to Tübingen. Normally an annual event, this was their first opportunity to visit the Institute since the disruption of the COVID pandemic—and thus the first time that they had seen the new physical location of the Institute. We were able to have a productive meeting also with Frau Prof. Dr. Weyel, the Dean of the Protestant Faculty, ensuring an ongoing strong relationship and partnership with the University of Tübingen. We have already planned the date for their next annual visit and meeting with the Dean in May 2025.

University:

Dr. Leopold Lucas-Prize 2024 awarded to Prof. David Nirenberg (Princeton University)

In other news, this year's Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize was awarded to Princeton University historian Dr. David Nirenberg. The Protestant Faculty of the University thus honored his research on the relationship between Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Middle Ages and the present day. Dennis attended the award ceremony on Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in the Festsaal of the University, where Dr. Nirenberg gave the keynote speech on the topic: “What theology and history can offer each other when thinking about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.”

Start of the Summer Semester in Tübingen

NEWS FROM TÜBINGEN

by Dennis Lindsay

At the time when most colleges and Universities in the USA and elsewhere are wrapping up the "academic year" and celebrating commencement, the Universities here in Germany are just getting started with the "summer semester"—the second half of our academic year. The program at the Institute is just now coming into full-swing. We have a complete lineup of weekly presentations in our English-German Colloquium in New Testament that will take us up through the end of July. The presenters represent doctoral students and faculty from the University of Tübingen, as well as the University of Edinburgh and the University of Bucharest. The "Readings in Theological English" course is also under way, with a focus on selections from  British theologian Alister McGrath's book entitled: "Theology: The Basic Readings." In this text McGrath presents excerpts from Christian authors throughout the history of the church (e.g., Augustine, Irenaeus, Martin Luther, John Wesley, Karl Barth, C.S. Lewis, and many others) on a variety of theological topics of central interest to the New Testament