{"id":21663,"date":"1996-03-21T11:05:09","date_gmt":"1996-03-21T15:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/home.bates.edu\/?p=21663"},"modified":"2015-06-26T10:37:41","modified_gmt":"2015-06-26T14:37:41","slug":"bible-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/1996\/03\/21\/bible-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Philosophy, religion departments to hold biblical studies conference"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In an effort to link the academic work of Maine scholars with community interest in the Bible, the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Bates will host a three-day conference of biblical studies on Friday, Nov. 1, through Sunday, Nov. 3.<\/p>\n<p>The public is invited to attend free of charge.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The symposium will explore the Bible from literary, historical and religious perspectives. Conference organizers Robert Allison and Michael Caspi, both professors of religion, approached colleagues at many of Maine&#8217;s institutions of higher education where religion and literature are taught.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We do have a problem nationwide where biblical scholars tend to discuss their findings with each other, but the public at large remains absent. We haven&#8217;t had a chance to explain what we&#8217;re doing.&#8221; Allison said.<\/p>\n<p>By sharing their work with the public, the assembled Maine academics hope to demonstrate, according to Allison, &#8220;a sense of our obligation as scholars to the community around us to share some of our work, and to give the public a chance to question us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The conference will commence on\u00a0Nov. 1 at 3:30 p.m., in the Benjamin E. Mays Center, with greeting remarks from President Donald W. Harward and Martha Crunkleton, dean of the faculty. The keynote address follows at 4 p.m., delivered by Susan Ackerman, associate professor of religion at Dartmouth, who will speak on <em>Wine, Women and Song: Female Musicianship and the Vineyard Festivals of Ancient Israel.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A specialist in ancient near-Eastern history and religion, with particular focus on the relationships between the Israelite religion and religions of Israel&#8217;s neighbors, Ackerman is the author of <em>Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Sixth-Century Judah<\/em> (1992) and the forthcoming <em>Warrior, Dancer, Seductress and Queen: Women in Judges and in Biblical Israel<\/em>. She received her Ph.D from Harvard.<\/p>\n<p>Following Ackerman&#8217;s lecture, Caspi will discuss <em>The Narrative of Genesis 22 in Three Editions<\/em>, in the Benjamin E. Mays Center at 5:15 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>Sessions for the second and third days of the conference, Nov. 2 and 3, will be held in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives.<\/p>\n<p>The Nov. 2 schedule of presentations, beginning at 9 a.m., includes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>9:15 a.m. &#8211; Frank K. Carner, professor of English at the University of Southern Maine, on <em>Justice, Poetic Justice and the Resolution of Biblical Plots<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>10:15 a.m. &#8211; Thomas R.W. Longstaff, Crawford Family Professor of Religious Studies at Colby, on <em>Sepphoris: The Ornament of the Galilee<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>11:15 a.m. &#8211; Ann Johnston, professor of theological and religious studies at Bangor Theological Seminary, on <em>The Isaiah Apocalypse: Vision of the Triumph of God<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>2 p.m. &#8211; William Sayres, professor of literature at the University of Southern Maine, on <em>Providence and Gratitude in &#8216;Persuasion&#8217;<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>3 p.m. &#8211; Robert Allison, associate professor of religion at Bates and chair of Classical and Medieval Studies, on <em>Images of light and Imagery of Ingestion: The Mysticism of the Gospel of Thomas<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>4 p.m. &#8211; Burke O. Long, professor of religion at Bowdoin, on <em>Scenery of Eternity: W.F. Albright and Ideas of &#8216;Holy Land&#8217;<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>7 p.m. &#8211; A screening of Cecil B. DeMille&#8217;s film classic <em>Samson and Delilah<\/em> will be held in Room 204 of Carnegie Science Hall, followed by commentary and discussion led by Irena Makarushka, associate professor of religion and department chair at Bowdoin.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The conference&#8217;s closing sessions, beginning at 9 a.m. on\u00a0Nov. 3 include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>9:15 a.m. &#8211; John R. Wilson, professor of literature at the University of Maine, Orono, on <em>Change the &#8216;The&#8217; to &#8216;A&#8217;<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>10.15 a.m. &#8211; Becky Kasper, professor of American religious history at St. Joseph&#8217;s College, on<em> Old Testament History and the Problems of Biblical Theology<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To encourage dialogue, each scholarly presentation will be followed by questions from the audience. Conference programs have been distributed to local churches, synagogues and high schools.<\/p>\n<p>Bates intends to host two additional symposia of Maine-area scholars in 1997, including <em>Maine Remembers the Holocaust<\/em>, in the spring, and <em>God With the People, God and the People: An Interfaith Symposium<\/em>, in the fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an effort to link the academic work of Maine scholars with community interest in the Bible, the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Bates will host a three-day conference of biblical studies on Friday, Nov. 1, through Sunday, Nov. 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[6982,7394,10751],"class_list":["post-21663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-event-highlights","tag-philosophy","tag-religion","tag-religious-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21663"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92212,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21663\/revisions\/92212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}