Thursday, April 12, 2012

Virtual Pilgrimages at Trinity Wall Street April 15-May 20


Everyone is welcome to join us this coming Sunday at Trinity Wall Street for all sessions or only parts!

Virtual Pilgrimages
Eastertide 2012
Trinity Wall Street
Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. April 15, 22, 29, May 6, 13 and 20

To understand pilgrimages, it's essential to know the quintessential journey of the ancient world in the Hellenistic period: Homer's Odyssey, the journey of Odysseus from Troy to his home in Ithaca. Therefore, this mini-course will start with Homer's Odyssey so as to identify themes of the journey including hospitality, human identity and deception, and the meaning of home. Then we will continue with journeys in the Hellenistic period including: 1) Philo's Treatise on the Preliminary Studies, in which the 1st Century Alexandrian writer Philo depicts Abraham's journey as the movement of the soul from bodily passions towards true wisdom and virtue through paideia, education; 2) real pilgrimages e.g. to the Asklepion in Pergamon and to the House of John in Ephesus and 3) otherworldly journeys in apocalypses like Enoch, the Testament of Abraham, and Revelation.

Helpful text: Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity eds. Jas´ Elsner and Ian Rutherford (OUP 2005)

April 15 Homer's Odyssey—Prof Peter Meineck, New York University (interactive map of Odysseus' Journey: http://www.classics.upenn.edu/myth/php/homer/index.php?page=odymap)

April 22 Journey as metaphor: Philo of Alexandria, The Preliminary Studies (see http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/yonge/book18.html)

April 29 Otherworldly Journeys: Apocalypse of Abraham (see http://www.cimmay.us/pdf/box_landsman.pdf), Testament of Abraham (see http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1007.htm), The Apocalypse of Paul (see http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/ascp.html)

May 6 Pergamon—Professor Brigitte Kahl, Union Theological Seminary

May 13 Ephesus--Professor Katherine Shaner, General Theological Seminary

May 20 Ethos of pilgrimage: mindset and impact—Green pilgrimages 

No comments:

Podcast Conversations with contributors to Borderlands of Theological Education

 Just thrilled that our podcast conversations with contributors to Borderlands of Theological Education are available here: https://podcast...