The Brother John G. Driscoll Professorship
in Jewish-Catholic Studies

News and Events

Autumn 2008 Brochure

Autumn 2008

Date: Thursday September 25, 2008
Time: 7:30pm
Location: Murphy Auditorium

It should be very easy to know Paul and to understand him. After all, he is the author, purported author, or subject of about 40% of the entire New Testament, the earliest writer in the long tradition of Christian authorship. At least eight of the letters attributed to him in the New Testament actually are his, and he is the main protagonist of the Acts of the Apostles. It should be easy to know him and to understand him. But it is not. Readers have been arguing about what Paul meant in his letters since before the New Testament canon was even completed. And the letters of Paul are still an active minefield. Believers and nonbelievers, churchgoers and non-churchgoers, continue to argue about what Paul wrote about worship, about the relationship between Jews and non-Jews, about the respective roles of women and men, in marriage and in church. How can we find a way to avoid misunderstanding Paul? What does he have to offer us today?

Invited Scholar

Dr. Peter Zaas is professor of Religious Studies at Siena College and director of the Hayyim H. Kieval Institute for Jewish-Christian Studies. For nine years he convened the Exegesis of Biblical Ethical Texts Group of the Society of Biblical Literature. He conducts research in the areas of moral thought in Jewish and early Christian literature, the Church Fathers as evidence for Jewish life in Late Antiquity, the history and literature of Hellenistic Judaism, Christian origins, and the historiography of early Christianity. Dr. Zaas is a member of the board of directors of the Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations.

COMMEMORATING THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF KRISTALLNACHT
An English-language opera celebrating extraordinary acts by ordinary People

Bradley Detrick, composer/librettist
David Mold, director

Date: Tuesday October 28, 2008
Time: 7:30pm
Location: Murphy Auditorium

Bradley Detrick brings to life the little-known story of how the Danish people miraculously conspired to save nearly all of the Danish Jews just as the Nazis were coming to take them to concentration camps in 1943. He transports the audience to Denmark during the height of World War II, and into the lives of ordinary people as they grapple with the world crumbling around them. The libretto, a fictional account based on true events, centers around an ensemble of characters that make the difficult choices to act righteously and these seemingly small actions, combined with those of others, ultimately save so many.

Bradley Detrick has toured throughout the world as trumpet soloist and arranger with the Glenn Miller Orchestra. His jazz compositions have been performed and recorded extensively by the mystic pilgrims jazz quintet. In 2004, Detrick’s oratorio Prophecies for narrator, 5 soloists, choir, percussion ensemble, and piano was presented at Merkin Hall.

The company includes performers from the New York City Opera and the Metropolitan Opera Company.

A reception with the composer and performers will follow.

This evening’s production is co-sponsored by the Iona College Council on the Arts through the generosity of JoAnn and Joseph M. Murphy and the Baron Lambert Fund.

 

Date: Monday November 17, 2008
Time: 7:30 pm
Location: Spellman Hall

Paul’s argument in Romans climbs to a crescendo of apocalyptic optimism as he describes the universal salvation accomplished by God through the death, resurrection, and imminent return of his Son. Sharing a conviction with the later rabbinic editors of the Mishnah, Paul proclaims, “All Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:28). Three and a half centuries later, commenting on this same verse, Augustine argues that the vast majority of humanity, Jew and Gentile both, was damned. How, then, did Augustine understand “all Israel”? How did this redeemed “Israel” relate to Augustine’s Jewish contemporaries? What did the Jews have to do with redemption in Christ?

Invited Scholar:

Dr. Paula Fredriksen is the Aurelio Professor of Scripture in the Department of Religion at Boston University. Besides Augustine on Romans, her translation of Augustine’s early works on Paul, she has authored From Jesus to Christ, which was the basis of a popular Frontline documentary, and Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, which won a National Jewish Book Award. Her most recent study is Augustine and the Jews. A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism (Doubleday, 2008). She, her husband, and various combinations of their children live in Boston and in Jerusalem.

 

Date: Monday December 1
Time: 7:30 pm
Thomas J. Burke Lounge, Spellman Hall

Invited Scholars:

Dr. Anita Houck, St. Mary’s University

Rabbi David Ingber, Romemu

 

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All events are free and open to the public

For information contact:
Dr. Elena Procario-Foley
Driscoll Professor of Jewish-Catholic Studies
Iona College
715 North Ave.
New Rochelle, NY 10801
(914) 637-2744
eprocariofoley@iona.edu