TheoArtistry Poets Scheme

StAnza, Scotland's International Poetry Festival

Deadline: 31 October 2017 at 17:00

Poets are invited to apply for this workshop and collaboration opportunity and the chance to spend time in sessions including creative workshops with ITIA to produce a new poem during StAnza 2018.

This project offers poets the opportunity to work with Michael Symmons Roberts, Sir James MacMillan and researchers from ITIA (the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts) on a new poem during StAnza 2018.

Poets are invited to apply for the TheoArtistry Poets’ Scheme, a collaboration between StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival, and ITIA, both based in St Andrews, Fife.

As part of the TheoArtistry Composers’ Scheme, six composers have already collaborated with researchers in ITIA and Sir James MacMillan to produce new musical settings of Scriptural texts. On the eve of StAnza’s 2018 festival, there will be the launch concert of the CD recording ‘Annunciations’ which includes these six new works for choir.

Poets are now invited to apply for the TheoArtistry Poets’ Scheme. The six poets selected will have the chance to spend Tuesday 6th March in St Andrews in sessions including creative workshops with ITIA researchers, the poet Michael Symmons Roberts, and the composer Sir James MacMillan. On Sunday 11th March, each poet will have the chance to present their draft poem at a StAnza event. The poets will each give permission for the final version of their poem to be included in a book produced by ITIA.

Poets on the scheme will be teamed up with an ITIA theologian partner, who will provide a package of resources on the Scriptural passage prior to the Tuesday workshop, follow up on the poet’s own interests in person and/or via skype, and provide a creative sounding board during the scheme.

Poets interested in taking part in this innovative project should email director@stanzapoetry.org by 31st October with a brief 80 word CV, a sample poem, and a short statement of how you think this scheme could develop you as a poet (250 words).

For further information, please contact director@stanzapoetry.org (Eleanor Livingstone), or visit http://www.stanzapoetry.org 

"Can a Scientist Trust the New Testament?"

The Professor N T Wright, DD, of the School of Divinity, will be delivering the James Gregory Lecture on Science and Christianity at the Physics Lecture Theatre (School of Physics, North Haugh) on Monday, 17 February 2014, from 17:15 - 19:00.
  
Professor Wright will be discussing the difference between scientific, historical and theological knowledge, and the importance of getting all three in proper relation.  He will also address particular claims of the New Testament, the challenges they posed in their own day and continue to pose today, and whether the New Testament should be considered trustworthy today.

The Lecture is open to the public.  For more information please contact Dr Andrew Torrance (School of Divinity).

Legends about the Ark of the Covenant published

An bas-relief image of the Ark of the
Covenant from the Auch Cathedral, France

A newly translated text, the "Treatise of the Vessels" (Massekhet Kelim, in Hebrew), claims to reveal where treasures from King Solomon's temple were hidden and discusses the fate of the Ark of the Covenant itself. The earliest known copy of the text is from the seventeenth century and it is unknown how long before this it was composed. The Ark of the Covenant is a chest that, when originally built, was said to have held tablets containing the 10 commandments; it was allegedly housed in Solomon's Temple. The translated text, which is a collection of entertaining legends about the lost treasures of the Temple, says that the "treasures were concealed by a number of Levites and prophets" writes Prof. James Davila of the School of Divinity in the book "Old Testament Pseudepigrapha More Noncanonical Scriptures, Vol. 1" (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2013). Prof. Davila is the first to translate the full text to English.

Biblical scholars to gather at St Andrews

The School of Divinity is pleased to announce that the fourth St Andrews conference on Scripture and
 Christian Theology will be held on 10-13 July on the New Testament book of Galatians. Key topics will include how Saint Paul believed being Christian changed lifestyle and attitudes to, for example, gender, socio-economic class or other ways of faith and how radically different was the religion of Jesus and his followers from that of the 'former people' in Israel? Keynote speakers include Richard Hays, George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testaments at Duke Divinity School in North Carolina; N T Wright, Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins, University of St Andrews; and Oliver O’Donovan, Professor of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at the University of Edinburgh. [Conference programe] [Registration details]

Inaugural Lecture: Prof. Tom Wright

Professor Tom Wright, School of Divinity, will deliver his Inaugural Lecture, "Imagining the Kingdom: Mission and Theology in Early Christianity", in School III, St Salvator’s Quadrangle on Wednesday 26 October 2011, at 5.15pm. All are welcome.

Professor Wright's research continues the project of understanding the early Christians and their writings within the matrix of first-century Jewish and Greco-Roman history and culture. His present work focuses on Paul, as he works towards a major book on the apostle. His inaugural lecture looks beyond that, both to further work on the four gospels and to an investigation of the philosophical and cultural roots of the modern movement of biblical scholarship and the ways in which fresh historical study can overcome some of the residual weaknesses in that movement.

Prize award from the Society of Biblical Literature

Dr Nathan MacDonald, of the School of Divinity, has been named the first recipient of the Society of Biblical Literature's David Noel Freedman Award for Excellence and Creativity in Hebrew Bible Scholarship. The award for 2011 was made for Dr MacDonald's essay, "Ritual Innovation: The Feast of Weeks from the Covenant Code to the Temple Scroll". Dr MacDonald has published numerous books and articles on the interpretation of the Old Testament. His research has previously been recognized by a number of other international awards including an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship, the John Templeton Award for Theological Promise and the Sofja-Kovalevskaja-Preis.