A renowned New Testament scholar will visit West Virginia University Monday, April 12, to give the Manfred O. Meitzen Outstanding Guest Theological Lecture.
Amy-Jill Levine will speak onLost History of Women in the Bibleat 7:30 p.m. at Erickson Alumni Center. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Sponsored by the Program for Religious Studies in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, the lecture honors Manfred O. Meitzen, the long-time religious studies director who died in an accident in 1997.
Dr. Levine teaches at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and describes herself as aYankee Jewish feminist who teaches in a predominately Protestant divinity school in the buckle of the Bible Belt.She is the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies and director of the Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender and Sexuality at Vanderbilt.
Prior to joining the Vanderbilt faculty, Levine was the Sara Lawrence Lightfoot Associate Professor of Religion at Swarthmore College. She holds a bachelors degree from Smith College and masters and doctoral degrees from Duke University.
Levines numerous publications address Christian origins, Jewish-Christian relations, and sexuality, gender and the Bible. She has spoken nationally and internationally, and has appeared on CNN , PBS, the Faith and Values Channel and National Public Radio, among other media outlets.
Her current projects include the editing of the 14-volumeFeminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Literatureseries (Continuum/Sheffield University Press). She has received grants from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies.
The Program for Religious Studies in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences meets the needs of WVU students by offering instruction in major world religions, including Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In addition, the program offers courses dealing with other diverse topics such as ethics, biblical studies and the history of evil.
For more information about the Program for Religious Studies, call Dr. Richard Montgomery, director, 304-293-3641 ext. 301.