Lecture Series

Fall 2024 Lecture Series

"It's the Religion, Stupid"
Religious Dimensions in Current Crises

Bruce Chilton, Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Philosophy and Religion;
Director, Institute of Advanced Theology

After the Cold War ended American politicians became fond of the mantra, "It's the Economy, Stupid." They were not wrong, although other factors also have their sway. This autumn's series will consider global crises in which religion plays a central role, sometimes overrules self-interest, and needs to be understood for any address of the situation to be productive.

Lectures will take place on the following Mondays at 12:30 pm in Bard Hall.

Monday, September 23rd: White Supremacy in the American Elections
Monday, October 7th: The Confrontation of Orthodoxies in Ukraine
Monday, October 21st: "From the River to the Sea" in Likud's Presentation"
Monday, November 4th: "From the River to the Sea" in the Hamas Charter."

Spring 2024 Lecture Series

Divisions that Define Us

Bruce Chilton, Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Philosophy and Religion;
Director, Institute of Advanced Theology

During the past two millennia, systemic ruptures in the understanding of religion and society have shaped the cultural contours of all the lands that once comprised the Roman Empire. These schisms have of course featured in the histories of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, but they also have exerted a profound influence on the ways that people in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and later the Americas conceive of themselves of their relations with one another. Our series will deal in order with: (1) the emergence of Christianity from Judaism and the resulting contention, (2) the breach between the Latin West and the Greek East after the conversion of Constantine, (3) the rise of Islam and the proclamation of the Crusades, (4) the Reformation and its consequences, and (5) the opposition between religion and science in the modern period.

Lectures will take place on the following Mondays at 12:00 pm in Bard Hall.
February 26th, March 11th and March 25th, April 8th and April 22nd.

Fall 2023 Lecture Series

The Aramaic Jesus

Bruce Chilton, Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Philosophy and Religion and director of the Institute of Advanced Theology

Although the Gospels are written in Greek, Jesus and his first followers framed their teaching in Aramaic. Their forms of expression were so influential, Aramaic words and phrases are literally quoted in the New Testament. New discoveries of texts, as well as advances in linguistic study, enable us to look into the Aramaic foundations of the Gospels more deeply than at any other time since the first century.

Lectures will take place on the following Mondays at 12:00 pm in Bard Hall.

Monday, October 30th, Monday, November 6th and Monday, November 13th.

Spring 2023 lecture series

Part IV: Cain: the first murder, the first city

Cain’s character is the most complex within the narrative of the primal human family in the Book of Genesis. His emotional conflict, the first described in the narrative, drives him to kill his brother Abel, with all the consequences that act implies. Cain brings his violent impetus, as well as his emerging skill as a metal-worker (the etymological origin of his name) to the founding of cities, and their complex, conflicted heritage.
Part V: The Serpent: Language unravels Eden

In the Garden of Eden, the Serpent plays a unique role. In keeping with that pivotal function, the narrative in the Book of Genesis also depicts the Serpent in fully mythological terms, unlike any other character in the story. As the plot unfolds, the role of language in distorting reality, and in ultimately undermining honest relationships, is woven into the serpent’s brilliant but destructive scheme.
Part VI: Yahweh: Conflicted Creator

Yahweh famously appears in the account of Eden as a highly anthropomorphic god. The narrative purpose of this representation, however, cannot be appreciated unless Yahweh’s character as it emerges in his relation to humanity is taken into account. Then the discrepancy between his generosity and his retribution comes into focus as an assessment of divinity itself.
VII: Eden: Unbroken Presence

Eden and the Garden planted at its east were no longer accessible to human beings according to the Book of Genesis. The Cherubim and a flaming sword blocked the way back. Yet the reality of Eden could still be felt. The great rivers known at the time of the Yahwists, not only the Tigris and the Euphrates, but also the Nile and the Wādī al-Ḥamḍ, all flowed from Eden in their understanding, and statues of the Cherubim in the Temple of Solomon marked the nearest point of entry. Invisible in ordinary experience, the influence of Eden could nonetheless be sensed and enhanced.

Fall 2022 lecture series

Part I: Adam, the squandering of power

The primal human being, Adam, stands at the fulcrum of the myth of Eden. He is endowed with language and the capacity to exert authority inside the endlessly fertile and sustaining garden in which he lives. How Adam faltered, provoking YHWH to expel human beings from the garden and from the delight of life without work, drives the plot of the narrative. Even outside Eden, however, Adam’s nature strives against banishment, in a struggle that has been depicted as tragic, heroic, and sometimes hopeful over the course of millennia.
Part II: Eve, and the Fundamentalist fantasy

The creation of Eve unfolds as Adam’s does, with two different versions in Genesis, but she is made, not from earth, but from flesh and bone. Unlike any other living creature, she becomes the prototype of women, not only in the curse she receives alongside Adam, but also in her capacity to transcend earth-bound barriers by means of social awareness. From the end of the first century, however, Eve’s profile changed radically. Held hostage to a cultural commitment to patriarchy, she increasingly became a symbol to justify repression, until American Fundamentalism dedicated itself to a portrayal of Eve in terms of male supremacy.
Part III: Abel, Last of the Innocent, First of the Righteous

Genesis devotes little space to Abel, who appears in a sparse narrative culminating in his death. The interpretative traditions of Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism, and Islam more than compensated for that apparently scant treatment. They produced a rich literature in which Abel was not only the standard of righteous behavior, but also the righteous judge whom God appointed to mete out recompense for just and unjust behavior. Abel’s innocence, apparently untouched by the judgment of Adam and Eve in the garden, makes him the last human being to stand outside the cycle of sin. Yet in terms of both his willingness to die for the honor of God and his human virtue, Abel became an archetype of the true martyr. His archetype survives to this day, even if Abel’s name is less familiar than it once was.

"In Search of the Once and Future Eden"

This lecture series with Bruce Chilton is in conjunction with the book launch of Eden Revisited: A Novel by László Z. Bitó ’60. Eden is both a place in the mythic past and the prospect for a balanced, ecological, and human civilization in the future. Gnostic writers in particular have portrayed how the idyllic garden could have been lost, and why regaining its richness has proven elusive. Laszlo Bito, a Bard alumnus from the class of 1960, investigated these issues in his book Eden Revisited. This series is designed to join in that quest, in order to press the issue of Eden’s deep promise.