PSCO

Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins

an Interdisciplinary Humanities Seminar
in its fiftieth-eighth year under the auspices of
The University of Pennsylvania
Department of Religious Studies
201 Cohen Hall, Philadelphia PA 19104

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Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins:
A Brief History

by Robert A. Kraft and Annette Yoshiko Reed

The Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins was organized on October 8, 1963, when 16 teachers of biblical and early church studies from the Philadelphia area gathered at the University of Pennsylvania at the invitation of Robert A. Kraft (University of Pennsylvania) and John H. P. Reumann (Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia).

It was decided that the subject matter should vary from year to year, and should be technical in nature, geared for those with academic, specialized interests in the period of Christian origins. Participating membership in the Seminar is open primarily to persons with significant training in the subject, especially those who teach at a college or seminary level and advanced graduate students, although other interested persons may be invited at the discretion of the members. Regularly scheduled meetings are held bi-monthly throughout the academic year, with occasional additional special meetings when circumstances dictate. Since its inception, the Seminar has received support from the Department of Religious Studies of the University of Pennsylvania, and at various times, from the Humanities Coordinating Committee, the Penn Humanities Forum, and the Center for Ancient Studies at the University. It holds most meetings in Cohen Hall at the University of Pennsylvania, and occasionally at Princeton University. Most recently, special sessions have been held at the sites of the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting.

In earlier days, the Seminar also maintained a mailing list of non-participating members, which has been replaced by an email announcement list for all interested persons (subscribe here) and more recently a Facebook group. The minutes of the meetings formerly were reproduced and mailed to all members at the end of the academic year, but now are posted, as available, on the website. Complete copies of the earlier printed minutes and related materials have been deposited with the libraries of the University of Pennsylvania (volumes 01–19) and the Lutheran Theological Seminary (Philadelphia). Back copies of the printed minutes (volumes 01 through 25) are still available from Bob Kraft (write kraft@sas.upenn.edu), at the cost of reproducing, packaging and mailing, and we continue to scan the older materials into electronic form to make everything freely available here on the website. Audio tapes also exist from many of the subsequent sessions, but minutes have not yet been created from those tapes. We need volunteers to create minutes that summarize the taped sessions.

The topics and personnel (co-chairpersons, secretaries) have been as follows:

August 07, 2020
jct