On Wednesday, 19 May 2021, Thammasat University students are cordially invited to participate in a free online public lecture on From “the Bible” to “Scripture”: learning again how to read Scripture.

A series of online multidisciplinary seminars analysing intellectual developments of significance for theology, philosophy, and ethics.

The Thammasat University Library collection includes many books on different aspects of the Bible,  a collection of religious texts that has had a profound influence on literature and history, especially in the Western world.

The speaker will be Reverend Professor John Behr, D.Phil. (Oxon), D.D. (Melbourne).

Reverend Behr is a British Eastern Orthodox priest and theologian. Since 2020, he has served as the Regius Professor of Humanity at the University of Aberdeen.

He is also Senior Visiting Fellow at the Laudato Si’ Research Institute, Oxford University, the United Kingdom.

The lecture will be presented by the Faculty of Theology and Religion, Oxford University. It is scheduled for 9pm Bangkok time.

Students are invited to register for the event by writing to timothy.howles@campion.ox.ac.uk

with a mention of their field of academic study.

As its website indicates,

Our Mission

The Laudato Si’ Research Institute conducts cutting-edge multidisciplinary research for societal transformation on the most pressing ecological and social issues of our day.

Rooted in theological and philosophical wisdom, it aims to serve higher education, ecclesial communities, and practitioners by fostering dialogue, inspiring innovative research, and promoting change for the common good.

Our Vision

Reconciling intellectual insight and the wisdom of religious traditions to help create a hope-filled future in solidarity with the poor and in care and respect for life on our common home.

Our Research

We pursue a holistic and integrated research agenda inclusive of all faiths and none that seeks to address the social and ecological challenges facing the global community.

We promote multidisciplinary dialogue while actively encouraging the inclusion of diverse voices from the periphery. Through this dialogue and the co-production of knowledge, we seek to inspire innovative research and through our partnerships to promote positive change for the most vulnerable and for all life on our common home.

Collaborating for Impact

By harnessing the intellectual resources of the academy and religious traditions, we aim to provide support for those actively engaged in effecting local and global change.

Through these alliances and partnerships, we seek to bring the concerns of the world’s most vulnerable into the heart of our research leading to new fundamental research and new ways of promoting global change.

The institute was named in honor of Laudato si’ (Praise Be to You), the second encyclical of Pope Francis.

For the modern Roman Catholic Church, a papal encyclical is a specific category of papal document, a kind of letter concerning Catholic doctrine, sent by the Pope and usually addressed especially to patriarchs, primates, archbishops and bishops. The form of the address can vary widely, and may concern bishops in a particular area, or designate a wider audience.

The word encyclical derives from a Latin term meaning circular or all-round, meaning that it is a text meant to be sent all around.

The English word encyclopedia originated from the same word, as another text that is meant to be sent around.

The encyclical Laudato si’ (Praise Be to You) is subtitled “on care for our common home.” In it, the pope criticizes consumerism and irresponsible development, laments environmental degradation and global warming, and calls all people of the world to take “swift and unified global action.”

The encyclical was published in 2015.

Reverend Behr has published a number of books which are available to TU students through the TU Library Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service. They include:

• John the Theologian and His Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology, Oxford University Press, 2019 (ISBN 978-0-19-883753-4)
• Origen: On First Principles, ed. and trans. Oxford University Press, 2018 (ISBN 978-0-19-968402-1)
• The Cross Stands, While the World Turns: Homilies for the Cycles of the Year. SVS Press, 2014. (ISBN 978-0-88141-495-0)
• Becoming Human: Meditations on Christian Anthropology in Word and Image, SVS Press, 2013 (ISBN 978-0-88141-439-4)
• Irenaeus of Lyons: Identifying Christianity, Oxford University Press, 2013 (ISBN 978-0-19-921462-4)
• St Athanasius: On the Incarnation, trans. SVS Press, 2012 (ISBN 978-0-88141-409-7)
• The Case Against Diodore and Theodore, Oxford University Press, 2011 (ISBN 978-0-19-956987-8)
• The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death, SVS Press, 2006. (ISBN 0-88141-306-2)
• The Nicene Faith (Formation of Christian Theology, V.2), SVS Press, 2004. (ISBN 0-88141-267-8)
• The Way to Nicaea (The Formation of Christian Theology, V. 1), SVS Press, 2001. (ISBN 0-88141-224-4)
• Asceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement, Oxford University Press, 2000 (ISBN 0-19-827000-3) (Behr’s Oxford doctoral thesis.)
• On the Apostolic Preaching, trans. SVS Press, 1997 (ISBN 978-0-88141-174-4) (Behr’s Master of Theology from St Vladimir’s.)

Among his many other writings listed on his website, Reverend Behr has written an article, From Adam to Christ: From Male and Female to Being Human.

It observes,

We speak of a newborn baby as a human being. Yet if by a human being we mean, as we often do, someone who can walk or talk, the baby cannot (yet) do these things. This is, it is important to note, not due to any “imperfection” in the newborn: an infant with perfectly formed limbs and tongue needs to exercise these organs to develop them—a development which includes occasions of falling down, getting bruised, or misspeaking. And if we define what it is to be human by what Christ shows us, in the love he displays by laying down his life, then it requires more than simple physical growth: it requires a life of askēsis [religious self-discipline] in learning virtue, culminating in our actual death, to become human… Children, although a blessing (and an increased opportunity for martyrdom!), are not the goal of marriage. It is noteworthy that when Christ reaffrms what was from the beginning— that we were created male and female to become one flesh—nothing is said about procreation (Matt. 19:4–6)…

In another essay, he notes that

Marriage has had a changing form over the centuries, especially from the pre-modem to the modem era.

Marriage-modern and pre-modern

In the pre-modern era, marriage was regarded as a necessity, enabling the survival of both spouses, through their clearly defined roles, and through the procreation of children, providing both an additional work force and security for the parents in their old age, and also the continuation of the family name and society at large. In the modem era, where it has become possible for greater numbers to live independently, finding both security and fulfilment in their own careers, marriage itself has come to be seen as an arena for selffulfilment and wholeness, in what has been called a ‘companionate’ marriage. Whereas Christianity offered a challenge to the former apparent necessity of marriage-relativizing both marriage and celibacy, for freedom and wholeness in the Holy One-Christianity has been, as it were, co-opted into ‘companionate’ marriage, as a religious icing on the cake, as part of all the things which contribute to what comes to be seen as traditional marriage and traditional values.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)