Professor
Alan F. Segal to deliver talk on Social Sources
of the Afterlife to celebrate his assuming Ingeborg
Rennert Professorship of Jewish Studies at Barnard
College
 |
March
14, 2000, NEW YORK, N.Y. -
Alan
F. Segal will deliver a talk on Social Sources
of the Afterlife at 5:30 p.m., Wednesday,
March 29, in the Julius S. Held Lecture
Hall, Barnard Hall, of Barnard College,
followed by a panel discussion, to celebrate
his assuming the Ingeborg Rennert Professorship
of Jewish Studies. The talk is free and
open to the public.
The panelists will include: Willard G. Oxtoby,
professor emeritus of the History of Religions
at the University of Toronto; Vincent L.
Wimbush, professor of New Testament and
Christian Origins, at the Union Theological
Seminary; and Alan M. Cooper, professor
of Bible, at the Jewish Theological Seminary
and the Union Theological Seminary.
|
"As
opposed to the other notions of the biblical world,
there are virtually no expressions of life after
death in the early writings of the Bible," noted
Segal. "Just as surprising as the absence of life
after death in the First Temple period is the sudden
appearance of the notion of resurrection during
the Second Temple period, especially in the martyrdoms
of the Maccabean Revolt. Along with the notion of
resurrection, other Jews were developing a notion
of immortality of the soul during this same period.
Both of these concepts were eventually absorbed
in to rabbinic Judaism and Christianity."
Segal
joined Barnard College in 1980 after teaching at
Princeton University and the University of Toronto.
His publications include Jews and Arabs: A Teaching
Guide; Two Powers in Heaven; Deus Ex Machina: Computers
in the Humanities; Rebecca's Children: Judaism and
Christianity in the Roman World; The Other Judaisms
of Late Antiquity; and Paul the Convert: The Apostasy
and Apostolate of Saul of Tarsus, which was named
the main selection of the History Book Club's summer
list and a selection of the Book of the Month Club.
He is currently writing a sociology of religion
tentatively titled Does Society Need Religion?,
and is working on a book about the afterlife for
the Anchor Bible Reference Library tentatively titled
Writing the Hereafter.
Segal
earned his B.A. at Amherst College, M.A. at Brandeis,
B.A.H.L. at the Jewish Institute of Religion at
Hebrew Union College, and his M.A., M. Phil., and
Ph.D. from Yale University.
Ingeborg
and Ira Rennert established the Ingeborg Rennert
Professorship of Jewish Studies with a $2.5 million
gift that also funded the Ingeborg, Tamara and Yonina
Rennert Women in Judaism Forum, along with two new
courses on The Jewish Woman: Some Historical and
Cultural Perspectives and Jewish American Women
Writers. Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel inaugurated
the professorship in a series of lectures in 1999-2000.
Two of the Rennerts daughters, Tamara '93 and Yonina
'95, are Barnard alumnae. For information, please
contact the Office of Special Events at 212-854-8021.
Contact:
Lucas Held, 212-854-2037
-
30 -
.jpg)
