Professor Albert Harrill of the Department of Classics will deliver the third lecture in the 2014-2015 "Religions of the World: Past and Present" community lecture series. His lecture is free and open to all. There will be a brief question-and-answer session and a reception following.
Abstract: How do critical biblical scholars interpret the miracles of Jesus? This talk explains how they do so by taking one famous gospel episode, “Jesus Stills the Storm,” as a case study. This story is told in three different versions in the Synoptic Gospels (Matt 8:23–27; Mark 4:35–41; Luke 8:22–25), with significant dissimilarities among them. Identifying these dissimilarities is important for historians of early Christianity, because it provides insight into the literary relationship among the Synoptic Gospels––how they came to be composed.