Biblical Studies and Patristics

Convenor: Dr Jane Heath (j.m.f.heath@durham.ac.uk). Please contact with any queries, e.g. if you would like to attend the seminar online.

Meetings: Mondays (3-4.30pm) in Seminar Room C in Abbey House and online. 

Description:

Attendance at this seminar is restricted to research postgraduates and staff working in the Biblical Studies and Patristics and to others on the seminar's mailing list. Anyone who is not a member of the seminar but who wishes to attend a specific meeting should contact Dr Jane Heath (j.m.f.heath@durham.ac.uk).

The Biblical Studies and Patristics research seminar meets each Monday of the term. On weeks with a visiting speaker, an informal drinks reception will be held immediately after the seminar in the common room. Attendance is restricted to postgraduates and staff working in the Biblical Studies and Patristics and to others on the seminar's mailing list, but anyone who is not a member of the seminar who wishes to attend a specific meeting should contact the Seminar Convenor.

The Seminar brings together the substantial Biblical Studies and Patristics research community associated with the Department. The core members are the full-time academic staff who specialize in Biblical (and related) studies together with postgraduate students working in this field either by research or coursework. Normally there is an academic presentation followed by discussion. Guest speakers from the UK and overseas constitute a significant part of the programme. From our own number, presentations by both staff and research students occur regularly. To allow access worldwide to our proceedings, some seminars have been recorded and placed on the web.

A recent development is the establishment of links with staff and postgraduates in the Department of Biblical Studies of Sheffield University and Manchester University. A very successful study day with presentations by both research postgraduates and staff of work in progress has been held annually for the past several years.

The Seminar also benefits from the Durham-Duke exchange programme. Recently, two Durham postgraduates have spent time at Duke University and one Duke postgraduate has spent six months with us in Durham.

Social events each term contribute to the conviviality of the seminar.

Seminars are held on Mondays, 3-4:30pm in term time

Abbey House, Palace Green, Seminar Room C, and online

(occasional seminars are *online only, as noted below)

More information, contact: j.m.f.heath@durham.ac.uk

All welcome

Epiphany term 2026

12th January Jan Dochhorn: ‘Multilinguality in the Roman Empire. The Greco-Roman Superstrate and Authoritative Local Languages as Substrate in Interaction’

19th January Stuart Weeks: ‘Wisdom(s) and Law(s)’

26th January Edward Creedy: ‘Thecla on the θύρίς: Paul in Iconium and the reception of Eutychus in the Second Century’ 

2nd February Helen Bond (Edinburgh): ‘“Son of Mary”: Reflections on the Historical Mary of Nazareth’

*9th February ONLINE ONLY Ellen Scully (Seton Hall): ‘Physicalist Soteriology and Ensoulment in Early Christianity’ 

16th February Anna Lefteratou (Cambridge): ‘Miscellany or Cento? Clement's ‘Bacchic’ (Strom. 4.25.162.3–4) and Gregory's ‘Hesiodic’ (PG 37.892) poems as imperial Christian quotation technique’ 

23rd February Ted Kaizer: ‘Considerations on the synagogue at Dura-Europos’ 

2nd March Madison Pierce (St Andrews): ‘The Texts Make the Man: Scriptural Interpretation and “Messianism” in the New Testament’ 

9th March Jacob Lollar: ‘Apocryphal Scenes in Syriac Illuminated Bible Manuscripts’

*16th March ONLINE ONLY Angela Kim Harkins (Boston): ‘Jesus's Entry into Jerusalem (Matt 21:1–11): The Messiah Who is Twice as Good as Solomon’ 

Michaelmas term 2025

6th October Grant Macaskill: ‘Transcending Differences: (P)revisiting the Pseudepigrapha

and Early Jewish and Christian Theology’

13th October Lauren Randall and Francis Watson: ‘Theft, Forgery, and an Early English

Bible’

20th October Walter Moberly: ‘Creation and Fall: On Interpreting Genesis 1-3’

*27th October (Festival in Late Antiquity - online only) Jae Han (Brown): ‘From Apostle to Martyr: The Manichaean Bema'

3rd November Wendy North: “A Time to Live and a Time to Die; Raising Lazarus and its Consequences in John 11 and 12”

10th November John Barclay: ‘Is Love Cruciform? Probing Paul's Social Ethics’ 

17th November Nikita Banev: Title TBC

1st December David Moffitt (St Andrews): ‘The Sending of the Son: Some Reflections on Directional Features of Jesus' Sacrifice in Galatians and Romans’

8th December Sophie Lunn Rockliffe (Cambridge): ‘Diabolical insults in late antiquity: antiheretical sayings from Polycarp to Nestorius’