Tag Archives: Lectures

2018 Gifford Lectures (Part 5)

14 Wednesday Mar 2018

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Here is my favorite quote from the previous lecture (lecture 4):

The gospels do not contain apocalyptic, in the first century sense they are apocalyptic. They are describing how the revelation, the unveiling, the visible coming of God took place; thus as far as the gospel writers were concerned…YHWH had returned to his people

As Wright explains, the theme of the return of YHWH has huge implications for understanding, among other things, Jesus’ well known journey toward Jerusalem beginning in Luke 9:51 and culminating in his death and resurrection. Luke tells the story in such a way to suggest that Jesus’ journey is the “actualization” of YHWH’s return to Jerusalem which was long-foretold by the prophets. This highlights the seriousness of Jesus’ “apocalyptic” rebuke of Jerusalem in ch. 13 and again in ch. 19, “You did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you!”

There is a lot to consider there, but I will leave it as is for now. Below is the video for the next lecture, titled “The Stone the Builders Rejected: Jesus, the Temple and the Kingdom”

As always, here is the link to the University of Aberdeen webpage for the lectures.

2018 Gifford Lectures (Part 4)

12 Monday Mar 2018

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My favorite quote from the previous lecture (lecture 3):

We ought not to speak of God incarnate until we have studied the incarnate God.

This wonderfully succinct quote is an excellent demonstration of the way Wright brings together history and theology in his larger project. It is worth sitting and pondering how the two parts of that statement fit together.

Here is the fourth lecture, “The End of the World? Eschatology and Apocalyptic in Historical Perspective”

As always, check out the blurb over at University of Aberdeen’s web page. All eight lectures are now posted there.

2018 Gifford Lectures (Part 3)

09 Friday Mar 2018

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I am really enjoying this lecture series. I hope that it eventually gets published as a book too. One thing I appreciate about N.T. Wright is his ability to see the parts in light of the whole. This applies equally to his readings of Holy Scripture, his grasp of the history of biblical scholarship, and the nexus between those two.

On a separate note, here is my favorite quote from lecture 2:

The idea of first century Jews, including Jesus and his early followers, expecting the literal and imminent end of the world is in fact a modern myth…a story invented by a community to sustain its common life and purpose. In arguing against this myth, I therefore intend to kill a fatted sacred cow. Any prodigals hoping for a feast should come home right now.

Boom.

Here is the third installment of Wright’s Gifford Lectures:

As always, check out the blurb over at University of Aberdeen’s web page. All eight lectures are now posted there.

2018 Gifford Lectures (Part 2)

08 Thursday Mar 2018

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After watching the first lecture, I have only two words: MIND BLOWN. I find it incredibly interesting, if deeply ironic, that the most recent New Testament scholar to give the Gifford Lectures before Wright was Rudolf Bultmann. Hmm.

Here is the 2nd lecture (out of 8 total):

Bes sure to read the blurb over at the University of Aberdeen.

2018 Gifford Lectures

06 Tuesday Mar 2018

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The first 6 lectures (out of 8 total)  by N.T. Wright are available to watch online (via YouTube) from the University of Aberdeen. I will post one at a time since probably not many of us have time to watch more than one lecture in a single sitting.

Here is the blurb from the University of Aberdeen:

The Gifford Lectures—held regularly at the four ancient Scottish universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, St. Andrews and Aberdeen—were established under the will of Adam Lord Gifford, a Senator of the College of Justice, who died in 1887.  His bequest allows the University to invite notable scholars to deliver a series of public lectures on themes related to ‘natural theology’, broadly construed.

 The 2018 Lectures here in Aberdeen will be delivered by world-renowned biblical scholar Professor NT Wright (University of St. Andrews) under the overall title Discerning the Dawn: History, Eschatology and New Creation.

Here is the title of each of the available lectures:

Lecture 1 – The Fallen Shrine: Lisbon 1755 and the Triumph of Epicureanism
Lecture 2 – The Questioned Book: Critical Scholarship and the Gospels
Lecture 3 – The Shifting Sand: The Meanings of ‘History’
Lecture 4 – The End of the World? Eschatology and Apocalyptic in Historical Perspective
Lecture 5 – The Stone the Builders Rejected: Jesus, the Temple and the Kingdom
Lecture 6 – A New Creation: Resurrection and Epistemology

Lecture 1 – The Fallen Shrine: Lisbon 1755 and the Triumph of Epicureanism

 

Lectures by Richard B. Hays

16 Tuesday Dec 2014

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A friend of mine pointed me to the following lectures by Richard B. Hays. If you are considering buying his newest book Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness these lectures cover the same material:

  1. Can the Gospels Teach Us How to Read the Old Testament?
  2. Torah Reconfigured: Reading Scripture with Matthew
  3. Turning the World Upside Down: Reading Scripture with Luke
  4. The Temple of His Body: Reading Scripture with John
  5. Opening Our Minds to Understand the Scriptures

Here is a quote from his Reading Backwards (page 4) that summarizes nicely is thesis in these lectures:

I want to suggest to you that we learn to read Scripture rightly only if our minds and imaginations are opened by seeing the scriptural text–and therefore the world–through the Evangelists’ eyes. In order to explore that hermeneutical possibility, we must give close consideration to the revisionary figural ways that the four Gospel writers actually read Israel’s Scripture…Here is a preliminary preview of what we will find as we pursue our exploration: the Gospels teach us how to read the OT, and–as the same time–the OT teaches us how to read the Gospels. Or, to put it a little differently, we learn to read the OT by reading backwards from the Gospels, and–at the same time–we learn how to read the Gospels by reading forwards from the OT.