University of St Andrews

School of Divinity

Institute for Bible, Theology & Hermeneutics

The Institute for Bible, Theology & Hermeneutics was established in 2009 to give formal identity to the long-standing project of research into Scripture and Theology that has been associated with the work at St Mary's School of Divinity (see the inaugural address).

The Institute seeks to overcome the sense of fragmentation within the field of Divinity that burdens many within the Academy, promoting intra-disciplinary conversation between Biblical Studies and the various fields of Theology, thus providing a core identity for a more integrated discipline competent to engage in inter-disciplinary research. With the study of general hermeneutical theory and practice at its centre, it will be outward-looking and keen to engage with issues arising from the contemporary world.

Through its research and the MLitt in Scripture and Theology, the Institute for Bible, Theology and Hermeneutics aims to look at the living text within communities of interpretation, then and now, showing how canonical scripture works to shape as well as fit interpretive communities.

Update

Report on Galatians Conference 2012 (PDF, 46 KB)

Events

To further an intra-disciplinary conversation between Biblical Studies and the various fields of Theology, the Institute for Bible, Theology and Hermeneutics will sponsor two Research Seminars in Semester 1. In both we are pleased to welcome back former faculty from St Mary's who have been instrumental in establishing St Mary's distinctive emphasis on the integration of Scripture and Theology!

24 September 2012, 3:30pm-5:15pm, Lecture Hall 1: Prof. Bruce Longenecker (Baylor University), "The Rotas Inscription from Pompeii: Material Evidence for Early High Christology"

3 December 2012, 3:30pm-5:15pm, College Hall: Prof. Richard Bauckham (Emeritus, St Andrews; Senior Scholar, Ridley Hall), "2 Cor 4:6: Paul's Vision of the Face of Jesus as God's Face", with a response by Prof. N. T. Wright.

All Postgrads are welcome!

Director's Notes

Prof N.T. Wright, who has quickly settled in to a significant role which supports inter alia the purpose of the Institute, has recently written the following, to indicate how his major research interest overlaps with what has already been going on here:

"I am continuing my work on Pauline theology for my major project, Volume IV of Christian Origins and the Question of God. The underlying thesis of this book -- which offers a full and fresh account of the origin, shape and cultural interaction of Paul's thinking -- is to propose that with Paul we see the birth of something quite new, 'theology' in a new register from anything known before in either Judaism or the Greco-Roman world of late antiquity.

'Theology', our term for Paul's reality, is the fresh biblically resourced reflection on God, God's people and God's purposes which functions within the larger reality of Paul's work as the mainstay of what was, for him, the central symbolic reality, namely the single renewed and united people of God in the Messiah.

This work thus engages precisely with Bible, Theology and Hermeneutics -- Paul's use of his Bible, the development of his theology, and his own hermeneutical strategies. It also points to tomorrow's use of the Christian Bible, Paul included, thedevelopment of appropriate biblical theology for tomorrow's world, and -- since Paul is both stimulus and model for this task -- the hermeneutical engagement with contemporary realities, especially in the worlds of philosophy and theology which, arguably, are more relevant to Paul than what today is called 'religion'."

MWE 22 August 2011

The text of Prof. Wright's Inaugural Lecture, delivered at the University of St Andrews on 26th October 2011 is now available for download N T Wright Inaugural Lecture text (PDF, 131 KB)

Publications

Please note that several of the following books represent the published output from conferences hosted by the University of St Andrews prior to the establishment of the Institute of Bible, Theology & Hermeneutics.

The Gospel of John and Christian Theology