Lecture on the Sayings of Jesus and the Worship of Christ

Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., March 23, 2001 — Harvard Professor Helmut Koester will give a lecture on “The Sayings of Jesus and the Worship of Christ” at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, April 4 in Griffin Hall, room 3, on the Williams campus. Koester is Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Ancient Church History at Harvard Divinity School. The event, sponsored by the religion department and the Croghan Fund, is free and open to the public.

A leading authority on the Gospels in early Christianity, he is the author of numerous books and articles in both German and English on the Bible. His works include “Trajectories Through Early Christianity” (with James M. Robinson), “History of Early Christian Literature,” and “Introduction to the New Testament and Ancient Christian Gospels,” seminal works in the field.

Koester, a former president of the Society of Biblical Literature, edited the Harvard Theological Review from 1975 through 1999. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Societas Novi Testamenti Studiorum and of the Society of Biblical Literature.

He has been engaged in archaeological research in Greece and Turkey for over 20 years. He is also the editor of the series Archaeological Resources for New Testament Studies to which he has contributed the treatments of “Athens” and Isthmia.”

He will offer a course at Williams in the fall titled “Jesus of Nazareth and the Gospels,” which will meet Mondays and Wednesday at 11 a.m. If enrollment allows, registered auditors will be welcome.

Koester earned a degree in theology in 1950 and his Ph.D. in theology in 1954 from the University of Marburg in Germany. He was ordained a Lutheran minister in 1956, and has taught at Harvard University Divinity School since 1958.

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