First Annual Makin Lecture in Jewish Studies

The First Annual Makin Lecture in Jewish Studies will be delivered by Professor Guy Stroumsa (Jerusalem, Oxford). It will take place on Wednesday May 25th, at 5.30 p.m. in Lecture Theatre L in the World of Difference Lecture Block, Liverpool Hope University, on "Teaching the Abrahamic Religions: a Subversive Enterprise".

Professor Stroumsa has provided the following abstract: "I wish to call attention to the great complexity of the comparative study of the monotheistic religions. I seek, moreover, to highlight the distinction between the comparative study, a scholarly enterprise, and the interfaith approach, whose goals are highly different. I also propose a new, integrative approach, and lay out the inevitable tensions between traditional religious orthodoxies and the new approach to the Abrahamic religions."

There will also be an informal seminar on Jewish-Christian Relations (ancient and modern) at 3.00 p.m. (until about 4.30) in Room FML 058.  A cup of tea will be available in the foyer outside the lecture theatre from 5.00 p.m.

Guy G. Stroumsa is Professor of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions and Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford, and Martin Buber Professor of Comparative Religion Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Born in Paris, Professor Stroumsa studied in France and Israel and has a Ph.D. (with distinction) from Harvard. He is a Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Zurich, and a Member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before moving to Oxford in 2009.  Most of his ten authored books focus on the cultural origins of early Christianity, in relation to Gnosticism, Judaism and Paganism, and include The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations of Late Antiquity and La formazione dell'identita cristiana. His most recent book is A New Science: The Discovery of Religion in the Age of Reason (Harvard University Press, 2010).