New Westar Fellows!

I am working on my post for Adam and Eve, but thought I would throw in some new information about Westar. Four new scholars have joined the list of Fellows. They are:








Shelly Matthews is Associate Professor of Religion at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina.








William E. Arnal is the
Associate Professor in the Department
of Religious Studies at the
University of Regina, Saskatchewan











Daniel A. Smith is Assistant Professor of New Testament Language and Literature at Huron University College in London, Ontario.











Todd Penner is the Gould H. and Marie Cloud Associate Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, and Director of the Gender Studies Program at Austin College in Sherman, Texas.









You can read more about each of them here.

The Jesus Seminar has started the Jesus Seminar On Christian Origins of which these Fellows will be a part. They are going to be doing some exciting and important work. This is from the Westar web page:

The goal of the Jesus Seminar on Christian origins will be to set the emergence of the Jesus traditions within the context of

• the larger Greco-Roman culture of which it is a part
• second temple Judaism and emerging Rabbininc Judaism
• the diversity among various followers of Jesus and their developing traditions

At the Spring 2006 inaugural meeting, Fellows decided to conduct their research place by place, using a variety of tools — archaeology, epigraphy, ancient history, cultural anthropology — to create a thick description of each place, inventory the texts and traditions that would likely have been heard there, plot them over time (tradition history) and then describe the "Christianity" they see developing there. As more places are described, Fellows will be able to track networks and connections, explore the conflicts that shaped the early Christian world, and identify the fault lines.

Where to begin? The earliest piece of Christian literature, Paul's first extant letter, was sent to Thessalonica. There is good material available for describing the city: archaeology, epigraphy, ancient descriptions. There is a possible tradition-history to explore between 1 and 2 Thessalonians. And the question of how to use Acts in describing the growth of Christianity will be broached early. These considerations made Thessalonica seem the most promising place to begin.

In due course, the seminar will look at Galilee, Jerusalem, Antioch, Edessa, Alexandria, Ephesus, Philippi, Corinth, and Rome. Other interesting topics could also be incorporated: the role of women, Jews and Gentiles, Jewish Christianity, Gnosticism, Christianity and the Roman Empire, among others. By focusing the inquiry on place, these and other questions will have a concreteness anchored in historical particularity.

The Fellows also agreed that, before proceeding with this agenda, it would be useful to air out some older ideas about Christian Origins to see where scholarship stands on them. Accordingly, they scheduled the first program on place — Thessalonica — for Spring 2007 in Miami, and will devote the Fall 2006 meeting in Santa Rosa, California, to debate on four long-standing propositions:

• Christianity began with Jesus.
• Christianity began with the resurrection.
• Christianity began with Pentecost.
• Christianity began with Paul.

Steering Committee

Stephen J. Patterson, chair
John S. Kloppenborg
Joanna Dewey
Bernard Brandon Scott
Arthur J. Dewey
Dennis E. Smith

Here is information on the Fall Meeting which will be October 18-21 in Santa Rosa. If you can't make it to sunny Santa Rosa, maybe you can make it to enthralling Elizabethton on November 3-4! October 13th is the last date to get reduced rates for the Jesus Seminar on the Road in Elizabethton, Tennessee. You can register on-line, by printing a form and mailing it in, or by calling (877) 523-3545.