Monthly Archives: April 2016

Lectures

Vast Universe: Extraterrestrials and Christian Revelation

This poster promotes a public talk by Thomas O’Meara, OP. The talk is entitled "Vast Universe: Extraterrestrials and Christian Revelation", and it will take place on May 12, 2016.

All are welcome to attend Vast Universe: Extraterrestrials and Christian Revelation, a talk by renowned theologian Thomas O’Meara, OP, our Aquinas Visiting Scholar. This event will take place on May 12 at 7 p.m. in Charbonnel Lounge, University of St. Michael’s College.

Fr. Thomas O’Meara, OP, may be best known as the author of the classic textbook Theology of Ministry. Among his many other works, however, is Vast Universe: Extraterrestrials and Christian Revelation. This talk will look at the implications that recent developments in cosmology and astronomy have on life in this universe.

Lectures

Missionaries as Cultural Intermediaries

Please join us at the upcoming PIMS Guest Seminar, featuring our visiting scholar  Dennis Halft, OP.

Missionaries as Cultural Intermediaries:   The Arrival of Medieval Arabic Bible Translations in Safavid Persia and their Reception by Muslim Scholars

Seminar Abstract:

In recent years, the Muslim reception of the Bible has attracted increasing scholarly attention. However, research on the biblical sources used by Twelver Shiite authors in Safavid Persia during the seventeenth century has been largely neglected. This paper will show that medieval Arabic translations of the Scriptures made by Eastern Christians from Greek, Syriac, and Coptic Vorlagen became available to Muslim scholars in Iran through the influence of Catholic missionaries. The following dissemination of manuscript as well as printed copies of the Gospels and other individual biblical books gave rise to the composition of fresh anti-Christian polemics, authored by well-known Twelver Shiite savants such as Sayyid Ahmad Alavi and Zahir al-Din Tafrishi. The polemical works are extant in different New/Modern Persian and Arabic manuscripts and recensions.

A comparison between the scriptural passages adduced in the Muslim polemical works and the Arabic translations of the Bible brought along by the missionaries shows that Arabic versions of the Scriptures were important sources for interreligious encounters and cross-cultural intellectual exchanges. There is evidence that the availability and accessibility of Arabic Bible translations led to a new phase of Muslim-Christian history in Safavid Persia. This paper will examine the ways in which scriptural reasoning was increasingly used as a polemical argument against Christianity.

Wednesday, 6 April 2016 ♦ 4:10 p.m.

Seminar Room A, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

59 Queen’s Park Crescent East, Toronto

Dennis Halft Guest lecture April 6 2016-1