Sunday, June 28 - Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles, California

More than a billion of the world’s people have committed their lives to the message of the Christian gospels. Their stories and teachings have shaped Western Civilization for the last 2,000 years. But where did these four Gospels come from? How and why were they written? What were the Scriptures at the time of Jesus, and how did that shape the New Testament and the earliest Christian communities? Was Mark’s Gospel authored by an apocalyptic Christian group? Does the hypothetical “First Gospel,” Q, a source for Matthew and Luke’s Gospels, really exist? Led by local and visiting biblical scholars, Scripture Week, hosted by the Center for Religion & Spirituality at LMU Extension, is an invitation to graduate students, scholars, Church and community leaders, priests and ministers, and those seeking personal enrichment to explore the origins of the Christian Gospels.

Intensive daytime courses and evening lectures will be held throughout the week.  Lectures are free and open to the public!  View program (pdf) here.

Location Conrad N. Hilton Center for Business, 100 Loyola Marymount University (Main Campus) 1 LMU Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90045 View Maps & Directions Parking on Campus

Enroll in all courses at a special rate! $190.00 Qualify for a Financial Match? what's this?

ITINERARY

ABOUT THE FEATURED SCHOLARS

John S. Kloppenborg, PhD is a specialist in Christian origins and second Temple Judaism, in particular the Jesus tradition (the canonical and non canonical gospels), and the social world of the early Jesus movement in Jewish Palestine and in the cities of the eastern Empire. He was written extensively on the Synoptic Sayings Gospel (Q) and the Synoptic Problem, and is currently writing on the parables of Jesus, the letter of James, and cultic, professional, and ethnic associations in the Graeco-Roman world. He has taught and conducted research in Toronto, Windsor, Jerusalem, Cambridge, UK, Calgary, Helsinki, and Claremont, Calif. He is one of the general editors of the International Q Project. He completed his M.A. (1977) and Ph.D. (1984) at the University of St. Michael's College (Toronto).  He is author of Excavating Q: The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel; The Tenants in the Vineyard: Ideology, Economics & Agrarian Conflict in Jewish Palestine; and coeditor of The Critical Edition of Q.

David Sánchez, PhD is an assistant professor of New Testament Studies at Loyola Marymount University.  He is a former recipient of the Hispanic Theological Initiative and a current member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS). His recent book, From Patmos to the Barrio: Subverting Imperial Myths focuses on the continued relevance of the Book of Revelation in the justification and simultaneous deconstruction of modern empires. Sánchez's current research is in the Gospel of Mark as an “end times” gospel and its ramifications for contemporary Christians.

William M. Schniedewind, PhD is Kershaw Chair of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Studies and Professor of Biblical Studies & Northwest Semitic Languages at the University of California at Los Angeles. He holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University, and is the author of How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel (Cambridge University Press, 2004) and several other books on Ancient Israel. Schniedewind was the director of the Qumran Visualization Project (QVP), which created a virtual reality model of ancient Qumran under the auspices of UCLA's Experiential Technologies Center (which also has notable projects for 2nd Temple Jerusalem, Islamic Jerusalem, and Ancient Rome).  Schniedewind has participated in excavations and surveys in Israel, including Tell es-Safi, Wadi Qumran, Har Tuv, and Tel Batash, and is currently the Associate Director of UCLA's Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project.

Jeffrey S. Siker, PhD is Professor of Theological Studies at LMU. Siker teaches in the area of New Testament theology and early Christianity, the history of biblical interpretation, and the use of the Bible in theological debate. He is the author of Disinheriting the Jews: Abraham in Early Christianity Controversy; Scripture and Ethics: 20th Century Portraits; and editor of Homosexuality in the Church: Both Sides of the Debate. Dr. Siker is an ordained Presbyterian minister in the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. and is a Parish Associate at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles.