Anna Abulafia | |
---|---|
Born | Anna Brechta Sapir 8 May 1952 |
Title | Professor of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions (2015–present) |
Academic work | |
Discipline | History |
Sub-discipline | |
Institutions | Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford |
Anna Brechta Sapir Abulafia, FBA , FRHistS (born 8 May 1952) is a British academic who specialises in religious history. The main focus of her research is medieval Christian-Jewish relations within the broad context of twelfth and thirteenth-century theological and ecclesiastical developments. Since 2015, she has been the professor of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at University of Oxford and a fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
Anna Sapir Abulafia studied history at the University of Amsterdam (Candidaats Examen, 1974; Doctoraal Examen, 1978). She gained her doctorate in theology (Church history) at the University of Amsterdam in 1984 and a higher doctorate, LittD, at Cambridge in 2014 (DLitt by incorporation in Oxford 2015). In 1979 she was Wetenschappelijke Medewerker in medieval history at the University of Amsterdam. After moving to the UK, she became a research fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge, 1981–1986, and the Laura Ashley Research Fellow at Lucy Cavendish College 1987–90. She was fellow, college lecturer and director of studies in history at Lucy Cavendish College Cambridge, 1990–2015, where she was graduate tutor (1992–1996), senior tutor (1996–2002) and vice-president (2002–2010). From 2013 to 2015 she was affiliated college lecturer and director of studies in history at Newnham College, Cambridge. On 1 April 2015, she was appointed the professor of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at University of Oxford and became a fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.[ citation needed ]
In July 2020 she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. [1]
Anna Sapir was born in New York in 1952. She moved with her family to the Netherlands in 1967, where she completed her schooling and studied history at the University of Amsterdam. In 1979, she moved to the UK and married the historian David Abulafia. [2] They have two daughters.
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine, or more broadly of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the supernatural, but also deals with religious epistemology, asks and seeks to answer the question of revelation. Revelation pertains to the acceptance of God, gods, or deities, as not only transcendent or above the natural world, but also willing and able to interact with the natural world and to reveal themselves to humankind.
Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices, themes and impacts of the world's religions. In general the comparative study of religion yields a deeper understanding of the fundamental philosophical concerns of religion such as ethics, metaphysics and the nature and forms of salvation. It also considers and compares the origins and similarities shared between the various religions of the world. Studying such material facilitates a broadened and more sophisticated understanding of human beliefs and practices regarding the sacred, numinous, spiritual and divine.
John Westerdale Bowker is an English Anglican priest and pioneering scholar of religious studies. A former Director of Studies and Dean of Chapel at Corpus Christi and Trinity College, Cambridge he is credited with introducing religious studies as a discipline to Cambridge University. He has been a Professor of religious studies at the universities of Cambridge, Lancaster, Pennsylvania and North Carolina State University. He is an Honorary Canon of Canterbury Cathedral, a consultant for UNESCO, a BBC broadcaster and author and editor of numerous books.
Dan Mark Cohn-Sherbok is a rabbi of Reform Judaism and a Jewish theologian. He is Professor Emeritus of Judaism at the University of Wales.
Miri Rubin is a historian and Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at Queen Mary University of London. She was educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Cambridge, where she gained her doctorate and was later awarded a research fellowship and a post-doctoral research fellowship at Girton College. Rubin studies the social and religious history of Europe between 1100 and 1500, concentrating on the interactions between public rituals, power, and community life.
Hilda Roderick Ellis Davidson was an English folklorist. She was a scholar at the University of Cambridge and The Folklore Society, and specialized in the study of Celtic and Germanic religion and folklore.
The Oxford Faculty of Theology and Religion co-ordinates the teaching of theology at the University of Oxford, England. It is part of Oxford's Humanities Division.
The concept of God in Abrahamic religions is centred on monotheism. The three major monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, alongside the Baháʼí Faith, Samaritanism, Druze, and Rastafari, are all regarded as Abrahamic religions due to their shared worship of the God that these traditions claim revealed himself to Abraham. Abrahamic religions share the same distinguishing features:
David Samuel Harvard Abulafia is an English historian with a particular interest in Italy, Spain and the rest of the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. He spent most of his career at the University of Cambridge, rising to become a professor at the age of 50. He retired in 2017 as Professor Emeritus of Mediterranean History. He is a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He was Chairman of the History Faculty at Cambridge University, 2003-5, and was elected a member of the governing Council of Cambridge University in 2008. He is visiting Beacon Professor at the new University of Gibraltar, where he also serves on the Academic Board. He is a visiting professor at the College of Europe.
The Abrahamic religions are a group of religions centered around the worship of the God of Abraham. Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch, is extensively mentioned throughout the Abrahamic religious scriptures of the Quran, and the Hebrew and Christian Bibles.
Peter W. Ochs is the Edgar M. Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies at the University of Virginia, where he has served since 1997. He is an influential thinker whose interests include Jewish philosophy and theology, modern and postmodern philosophical theology, pragmatism, and semiotics. Ochs coined the term "scriptural reasoning" and is the co-founder of the Society for Scriptural Reasoning, which promotes interfaith dialog among Christians, Jews, and Muslims through scriptural study groups. He is also a co-founder of the Children of Abraham Institute, which promotes interfaith study and dialog among members of the Abrahamic religions.
Linda Jane Pauline Woodhead is a British academic specialising in the religious studies and sociology of religion at King's College London Faculty of Arts and Humanities. She is best known for her work on religious change since the 1980s, and for initiating public debates about faith. She has been described by Matthew Taylor, head of the Royal Society of Arts, as "one of the world's leading experts on religion".
Edward Kessler is the Founder President of The Woolf Institute, a leading thinker in interfaith relations, primarily Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations, a Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge as well as a Principal of the Cambridge Theological Federation and Convenor of the Commission on the Integration of Refugees.
David William Brown is an Anglican priest and British scholar of philosophy, theology, religion, and the arts. He taught at the universities of Oxford, Durham, and St. Andrews before retiring in 2015. He is well-known for his "non-punitive theory of purgatory, his defense of specific versions of social Trinitarianism and kenotic Christology, his distinctive theory of divine revelation as mediated fallibly through both tradition and imagination, and his proposals regarding a pervasive sacramentality discerned in nature and human culture alike."
Guy Gedalyah Stroumsa is an Israeli scholar of religion. He is Martin Buber Professor Emeritus of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Emeritus Professor of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions at the University of Oxford, where he is an Emeritus Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall. He is a Member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
Jewish polemics and apologetics in the Middle Ages were texts written to protect and dissuade Jewish communities from conversion to Christianity, or more rarely to Islam. The terms polemics and apologetics may be distinguished but may also be considered somewhat subjective. A smaller number of proselytizing text also exists intended to convert Christians, or more rarely Muslims, to Judaism. However, the vast majority of Jewish polemical literature was written in response to Christian polemical writings and with a permanent reference to Christian arguments.
The Chair of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions was created at the University of Oxford in 2008. The holder of the position is a member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the university and a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. The role of the professor is to "[strengthen] Oxford's research and teaching in the Study of Religion, with particular reference to the three Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam."
Susan E. Gillingham is a British theologian, academic, and Anglican deacon. She specialises in the Hebrew Bible, the Psalms, and Jewish history from the Israelites to the Second Temple. She has been Fellow and Tutor in theology at Worcester College, Oxford since 1995, and was Professor of the Hebrew Bible at the University of Oxford from 2014 to 2019. She is the first British woman to have been awarded a Doctor of Divinity (DD) degree by the University of Oxford.
Judith Diane Maltby is an American-born Anglican priest and historian, who specialises in post-Reformation church history and the history of early modern Britain. She has been the chaplain and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, since 1993, and reader in church history at the University of Oxford since 2004.
Kathleen Louise Wood-Legh (1901–1981) was a Canadian historian, specialising in medieval social and economic history.