Philip Francis Esler | |
---|---|
Born | Sydney, Australia | August 27, 1952
Occupation | Portland Chair in New Testament Studies at the University of Gloucestershire |
Known for | Social-scientific interpretation of biblical texts |
Academic background | |
Education | Marist Brothers High School |
Alma mater | Magdalen College, Oxford |
Thesis | Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts: The Social and Political Motivations of Lucan Theology (1984) |
Academic work | |
Institutions | St Andrews University,St Mary’s University College Twickenham,University of Gloucestershire |
Philip Francis Esler FRSE (born 27 August 1952) is the Portland Chair in New Testament Studies at the University of Gloucestershire. He is an Australian-born higher education administrator and academic who became the inaugural chief executive of the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in 2005,remaining in that role until 2009. From 1995 to 2010 he was professor of Biblical criticism at St Andrews University. From 1998 to 2001 he was vice-principal for research and provost of St Leonard’s College at St Andrews. During the years 1999 to 2003 he served as a member of the board of Scottish Enterprise Fife. From October 2010 to March 2013 he was principal at St Mary’s University College Twickenham. He had an earlier career as a lawyer,working in Sydney during 1978-81 and 1984-92 as an articled clerk,then solicitor and barrister.
Esler is a leading figure with an international reputation in the field of social-scientific interpretation of biblical texts. [1] He applies ideas and perspectives from disciplines such as social psychology,anthropology and sociology to Old and New Testament texts to gain a better sense of what they meant to their original audiences. He has also published in the areas of New Testament theology and the Bible and the visual arts. He holds a Doctor of Divinity from the University of Oxford,by submitted work (2008),and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (elected 2009).
Born in Sydney,Australia on 27 August 1952,Esler completed secondary schooling at the then named Marist Brothers High School in the Sydney suburb of Eastwood. He read English,Greek and Law at the University of Sydney (B.A. Hons,LL.B) from 1971 to 1977. During 1977 he also worked as Associate to Mr Justice W. H. Collins of the New South Wales Supreme Court. From 1978 to 1981 he was employed as an articled clerk and solicitor at Allen,Allen and Hemsley,at the same time completing undergraduate Hebrew at Sydney University on a non-degree basis (1978-1980) and undertaking part of an LLM. In 1979 he and four others established National Outlook,an Australian Christian ecumenical monthly magazine devoted to justice and peace issues. [2] In October 1981,Esler went to Magdalen College,Oxford and undertook a D. Phil in New Testament.
At that time the new movement to apply social-scientific ideas and perspectives in biblical interpretation was gaining momentum. Esler adopted this broad approach in his doctorate and applied ideas from the sociology of knowledge and of sectarianism to investigate how social and political factors had affected the way Luke wrote his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. Thus,Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality supplied the idea that Luke was legitimating a new social and religious movement to its members in the late first century AD. Esler’s doctoral thesis was accepted by Oxford in 1984 and a modified version was published by Cambridge University Press in 1987.
In 1984 Esler returned to Sydney,initially as a solicitor at Allen,Allen and Hemsley before being called to the Bar in 1986. He completed his LLM in these years. In 1985 he began teaching New Testament courses on a part-time basis at Sydney University. In 1990 Esler attended a meeting in Portland,Oregon of a group of mainly US biblical critics committed to social-scientific interpretation. [3] At this meeting those present formally constituted themselves as "The Context Group:A Project for the Study of the Bible in its Socio-Cultural Context". [4] Although of diverse interests,all members accepted the importance of Mediterranean anthropology in understanding the context of ancient Greco-Roman world. Esler remains a member of the Context Group and has written on its history and modus operandi. [3]
In 1992 Esler was appointed Reader in New Testament in St Andrews University,becoming Professor of Biblical Criticism there in 1995. At St Andrews Esler initially published research which drew on his initial focus on the sociology of knowledge and of sectarianism and his expanding interests in Mediterranean anthropology,millennialism and magic. [5] Esler returned to the application of Mediterranean anthropology to biblical texts in Sex,Wives,and Warriors:Reading Biblical Narrative With Its Ancient Audience (2011). [6] Esler has formulated an approach called ‘archival ethnography’to assist in the interpretation of the legal papyri from 70 to 200 CE that survive from caves in the Dead Sea region. [7] In 2018 he applied the anthropology and sociology of gossip to the Book of Ruth in an article in the Journal of Biblical Literature, [8] an article that attracted a positive comment in a statement from the outgoing editor of the journal. [9]
In the mid-1990s Esler began using both the social identity theory of social psychologist Henri Tajfel and the approach to ethnic identity of anthropologist Fredrik Barth and these have been prominent in his research since then. In 1996 he published an essay applying social identity theory and Barth’s ideas on ethnicity to Galatians. [10] This was the first published application of social identity theory in New Testament studies. [11] Social identity theory has now become a widely used approach in New Testament interpretation. [12]
Esler applied both social identity theory and ideas on ethnicity in Galatians (1998) and Conflict and Identity in Romans (2003). He has recently argued for the need to take seriously the reality of Judean ethnic identity in the ancient Mediterranean world and its asymmetrical relationship to Christ-movement socio-religious identity in the interpretation of New Testament texts. [13]
Esler also writes on the way that biblical stories have been represented in Western art,including his study of two Rembrandt depictions of Saul and David in 1998. [14] In 2004 he co-authored with artist Jane Boyd a book on the Velázquez painting Christ with Martha and Mary in the National Gallery in London which was covered in The Independent on 18 February 2005 under the heading "Through the looking-glass:how a mirror explains the secrets of a masterpiece" (p. 3). A work Esler co-authored with Ronald A. Piper,Lazarus,Martha and Mary:A Social-Scientific and Theological Reading of John,contains a chapter on the Lazarus frescoes from the early Christian tombs in the Roman catacombs. More recently Esler has contributed a chapter on the biblical paintings of Welsh artist Ivor Williams to Imaging the Bible in Wales 1800-1975 (edited by Martin O’Kane and John Morgan-Guy).
Esler’s understanding of the role of the Arts and Humanities Research Council on his appointment as its chief executive in 2005 appeared in an article in The Guardian. [15] His developing views were reflected in the evidence he provided to the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology at their introductory meeting with him on 28 February 2007 [16] While at the AHRC,Esler also chaired the Network Board of HERA:Humanities in the European Research Area,an EU-funded network of national Research Funding Agencies for collaborative research in the humanities. [17] For much of his last year at the AHRC,Esler was involved in a major project on impact published in 2009 as Leading the World:The Economic Impact of UK Arts and Humanities Research. [18] One of his initiatives in this project was commissioning essays by leading UK arts and humanities researchers on the public value of research in their areas. These were later edited by Jonathan Bate FBA and published in 2010 as The Public Value of the Humanities. [19]
While chief executive of the AHRC (2005-2009),Esler chaired the Research Councils UK Knowledge Transfer and Impact project that formulated an approach to impact that was then applied to Research Council grants. [20] Impact was also later adopted,after some development,by the Higher Education Funding Council for England. Esler also brokered a collaborative agreement between all seven UK Research Councils and the Research Funding Agency of the State of São Paulo in Brazil ("FAPESP"). This agreement was signed by him on behalf of the Research Councils and by the president of FAPESP on 15 September 2009. [21] [22] This agreement was renewed for a further three years in September 2012 [23]
On 1 October 2010 Esler became principal and professor of Biblical iterpretation at St Mary's University College,Twickenham. [24] In 2012 St Mary’s was the subject of a QAA report into a degree programme in Clinical Hypnosis provided with a partner institution,a programme that Esler and the Senior Management later closed. [25] [26] [27] In the same year a number of other issues related to the University College were widely reported in the press:opposition to the decision to merge two academic schools; [28] [29] the unpopularity of the suspension of the head of one of those schools; [29] [30] protests against the merger and senior management by some theological and other students at the University College and at the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales; [28] [31] the legal proceedings preparatory to commencement of a defamation suit brought by Esler and two other members of staff against the editor of a Catholic news site,Josephine Siedleka (one of the three Catholic Women of the Year in 2012),proceedings from which Esler later withdrew; [32] [33] a vote of no confidence in Esler by the local branch of the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU). [34]
From 2009 to 2015 Esler was one of fifteen members of the Council of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL),one of the oldest learned societies in the US,with members from the US and other countries.
On 22 January 2013 Esler announced that he would step down as Principal of St Mary's on 31 March 2013.
On 1 September 2013 Esler was appointed Portland Chair in New Testament Studies at the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham,England. [35]
Esler's book,Babatha's Orchard:The Yadin Papyri and An Ancient Jewish Family Tale Retold,was published by Oxford University Press,Oxford on 23 February 2017. [36] Esler has written articles related to this book for OUP and for Bible and Interpretation. [37] [38] The book has been reviewed. [39] [40] It has also attracted attention in the Jewish and regional press. [41] [42]
In June 2017 The Blessing of Enoch:1 Enoch and Contemporary Theology,which Esler edited,was published by Cascade Books in Eugene,Oregon. This book inaugurates a new area of theological research. [43]
In July 2017 Routledge published Esler’s second,enlarged edition of The Early Christian World. [44] He edited the first edition in 2000.
Esler's monograph,God's Court and Courtiers in the Book of the Watchers:Re-interpreting Heaven in 1 Enoch 1-36,was published in November 2017,with endorsements by John Collins and Loren Stuckenbruck. [45]
In mid-2019 Esler published Ethiopian Christianity:History,Theology,Practice with Baylor University Press. [46]
Since 2015 Esler and his colleague Angus Pryor,practising artist and head of the School of Arts at the University of Gloucestershire,have been engaged in a research collaboration on the ancient Jewish text 1 Enoch (that survived from antiquity only in Ethiopia). This collaboration led to Pryor creating twelve 2m x 2m paintings on 1 Enoch and a large-scale,illuminated model of an Ethiopian church. These works have been exhibited online,with supporting iconographic documentation co-authored by Esler and Pryor,under the title Enoch:Heaven’s Messenger,since July 2020. [47] [48]
Esler’s latest monograph,2 Corinthians:A Social Identity Commentary (420 pages),was published by Bloomsbury T &T Clark in September 2021. [49]
The Bible is a collection of religious texts or scriptures, some, all, or a variant of which are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, Islam, the Baha'i Faith, and other Abrahamic religions. The Bible is an anthology originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. These texts include instructions, stories, poetry, and prophecies, among other genres. The collection of materials that are accepted as part of the Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon. Believers in the Bible generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration, but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text varies.
The Epistle to the Galatians is the ninth book of the New Testament. It is a letter from Paul the Apostle to a number of Early Christian communities in Galatia. Scholars have suggested that this is either the Roman province of Galatia in southern Anatolia, or a large region defined by Galatians, an ethnic group of Celtic people in central Anatolia. The letter was originally written in Koine Greek and later translated into other languages.
Papyrus 46, designated by siglum 𝔓46, is an early Greek New Testament manuscript written on papyrus, and is one of the manuscripts comprising the Chester Beatty Papyri. Manuscripts among the Chester Beatty Papyri have had several provenances associated with them, the most likely being the Faiyum. It has been paleographically dated between 175 and 225, or early 3rd century CE. It contains verses from the Pauline Epistles of Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Hebrews. Some leaves are part of the Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri, and others are in the University of Michigan Papyrus Collection.
Frederick Fyvie Bruce, usually cited as F. F.Bruce, was Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester from 1959 until 1978 and one of the most influential evangelical scholars of the second half of the twentieth century. His importance comes from the fact that when the academic community looked down upon Evangelicals, Bruce demonstrated that a scholar holding evangelical views could do worthwhile academic work. At the same time, he persuaded Evangelicals that they should not turn their backs on academic methods of Bible study, even if the results might differ from traditional evangelical views. As a result, he has been called the "Dean of Evangelical Scholarship".
John Barton is a British Anglican priest and biblical scholar. From 1991 to 2014, he was the Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Oriel College. In addition to his academic career, he has been an ordained and serving priest in the Church of England since 1973.
Daniel Baird Wallace is an American professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. He is also the founder and executive director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, the purpose of which is digitizing all known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament via digital photographs.
The Context Group is a working group of international biblical scholars who promote research into the Bible using social-scientific methods such as anthropology and sociology.
Richard John Bauckham is an English Anglican scholar in theology, historical theology and New Testament studies, specialising in New Testament Christology and the Gospel of John. He is a senior scholar at Ridley Hall, Cambridge.
The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri or simply the Chester Beatty Papyri are a group of early papyrus manuscripts of biblical texts. The manuscripts are in Greek and are of Christian origin. There are eleven manuscripts in the group, seven consisting of portions of Old Testament books, three consisting of portions of the New Testament, and one consisting of portions of the Book of Enoch and an unidentified Christian homily. Most are dated to the 3rd century CE. They are housed in part at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland, and in part at the University of Michigan, among a few other locations.
Andrew Keith Malcolm Adam, known as A. K. M. Adam, is a biblical scholar, theologian, author, priest, technologist and blogger. He is Tutor in New Testament and Greek at St. Stephen's House at Oxford University. He is a writer, speaker, voice-over artist, and activist on topics including postmodern philosophy, hermeneutics, education, and the social constitution of meaning.
Dom Bernard Orchard was an English Catholic Benedictine monk, headmaster and biblical scholar.
Jon Douglas Levenson is an American Hebrew Bible scholar who is the Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies at the Harvard Divinity School.
Peter Eric Enns is an American Biblical scholar and theologian. He has written widely on hermeneutics, Christianity and science, historicity of the Bible, and Old Testament interpretation. Outside of his academic work Enns is a contributor to HuffPost and Patheos. He has also worked with Francis Collins' The BioLogos Foundation. His book Inspiration and Incarnation challenged conservative/mainstream Evangelical methods of biblical interpretation. His book The Evolution of Adam questions the belief that Adam was a historical figure. He also wrote The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It and The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More than Our 'Correct' Beliefs.
Larry Weir Hurtado, was an American New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, and Emeritus Professor of New Testament Language, Literature, and Theology at the University of Edinburgh (1996–2011). He was the head of the School of Divinity from 2007 to 2010, and was until August 2011 Director of the Centre for the Study of Christian Origins at the University of Edinburgh.
Hans Dieter Betz is an American scholar of the New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Chicago. He has made influential contributions to research on Paul's Letter to the Galatians, the Sermon on the Mount and the Greco-Roman context of Early Christianity.
Craig S. Keener is an American Protestant theologian, Biblical scholar and professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary.
Carol Ann Newsom is an American biblical scholar, historian of ancient Judaism, and literary critic. She is the Charles Howard Candler Professor Emerita of Old Testament at the Candler School of Theology and a former senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. She is a leading expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Wisdom literature, and the Book of Daniel.
V. Philips Long, also known as Phil Long, is an American Old Testament scholar.
Beverly Roberts Gaventa is Distinguished Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Baylor University and Helen H.P. Manson Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis Emerita at Princeton Theological Seminary.
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