Öppen föreläsning i Nya Testamentet – Prof. Richard E. DeMaris

Den 16 januari kl. 15, i sal 219-220, håller Richard E. DeMaris, Senior Research Professor of Theology vid Valparaiso University (Indiana, USA), en öppen föreläsning:

Experiencing Baptism: Reconsidering the Wall Paintings in the Baptismal Room of the House Church in Dura Europos

A survey of baptismal narratives in early Christian literature documents a rather consistent emotional pattern, one in which prospective baptizands’ anxiety and fear give way to expressions of joy through the baptismal act. This pattern mirrors what Angelos Chaniotis and his collaborators have found in ancient Greek sources that report human–divine encounters. So similar are the patterns that baptism can be classified as a kind of human–divine encounter. With these considerations as guide, the paper turns to an analysis of the surviving wall paintings of the baptismal room of the house church in Dura-Europos with the aim of determining how baptizands would have experienced them. If baptism and epiphanic encounters were co-related and triggered a common emotional response, the wall paintings must be seen in a new way, not as expressions of theological themes or illustrations of biblical story but as facilitating and mediating the baptizand’s experience of the divine.

Föreläsningen sker med stöd av Wenner Gren-stiftelsen

Föreläsningen kan även följas på Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/99677879827

Dagen efter, den 17 januari kl. 13.00, är professor DeMaris opponent vid Aldar Nõmmiks disputation. Välkomna också till den.