Lectures and seminars

The Ehrhardt Seminar

The Ehrhardt Seminar is a weekly research seminar in which staff, honorary research fellows, and postgraduates present various aspects of their research. Visiting speakers from all over the world also regularly address the seminar. Attendance at the seminar is normally compulsory for full-time postgraduate students (MA, MPhil, and PhD) and is strongly recommended for part-time students.

Ehrhardt Seminar details, as well as past seminars, can be found in the Religions & Theology events section:

The Erhardt Seminar is named after Dr Arnold Ehrhardt who was evicted from his chair of Roman Law in Germany in the 1930s and came to teach New Testament Studies and Early Christian History at Manchester. He died in 1965 at the time when Professor F.F. Bruce was beginning to organize the seminar, especially for his many doctoral students and as a token of the esteem in which he was held the seminar was named after him. For more on Dr Ehrhardt, please see this link.

The Manson Memorial Lecture

T.W. Manson was Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at Manchester from 1936 until his death in 1958. Manson's publications while Rylands Professor were highly influential to the extent that several works are still in print today. To that end, each October a distinguished New Testament scholar gives a lecture in New Testament studies in his memory. In addition to honoring T.W. Manson, the Manson Memorial Lectures are often ground-breaking, such as J.D.G. Dunn's "The New Perspective on Paul" in 1982.

The following lists recent lectureships and any publications stemming from the Manson Memorial Lecture. Publications available via Manchester's eScholar platform are linked below. Compilation of publications is on-going. Affiliations are as of the time the lecture was delivered.

  • 2019 - Professor Andréas Dettwiler (Geneva)
  • 2018 - Professor Francis Watson (Durham)
  • 2017 - Professor Helen Bond (Edinburgh)
  • 2016 - Professor Steve Mason (Groningen)
  • 2015 - Professor Markus Bockmuehl (Oxford) - "The Personal Presence of Jesus in the Writings of Paul" SJT 70.1 (2017), 39-60.
  • 2014 - Professor Adele Yarbro Collins (Yale)
  • 2013  - Professor Andrew T. Lincoln (Gloucester)
  • 2012  - Professor George H. van Kooten (Groningen)
  • 2011 - Professor Loveday C. A. Alexander (Sheffield)
  • 2010 - Professor Jörg Frey (Zürich)
  • 2009 - Professor David Horrell (Exeter) - "A New Perspective on Paul? Rereading Paul in a Time of Ecological Crisis." JSNT 33.1 (2010), 3-30.
  • 2008 - Professor William Horbury (Cambridge)
  • 2007 - ProfessorChristopher Rowland (Oxford)
  • 2006 - Professor Daniel Marguerat (Lausanne) - "Paul after Paul: A (Hi)Story of Reception." Pages 1-21 in Paul in Acts and Paul in His Letters. WUNT 310. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013.
  • 2005 - Professor John Barclay (Durham)
  • 2004 - Professor Christopher M. Tuckett (Oxford)
  • 2003 - Professor Seán Freyne (Dublin) - Jesus, a Jewish Galilean: A New Reading of the Jesus Story. London: T&T Clark, 2004.
  • 2002 - Professor Judith Lieu (London) - "The Emergence of Christian Identity." Pages 1-26 in Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
  • 2001 - Professor Philip F. Esler (St. Andrews) - "History, Hermeneutics, and Communion: Romans." Pages 156-273 in New Testament Theology: Communion and Community. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005.
  • 2000 - Dr N.T. Wright (Westminster) - N.T.Wright, ‘A fresh perspective on Paul?’ Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 83:1 (2001), 21-39.
  • 1999 - Professor John Riches (Glasgow)
  • 1998 - Professor Larry Hurtado (Edinburgh) - "Religious Experience and Religious Innovation in the New Testament." Journal of Religion 80 (2000): 183-205. Subsequently updated and published as chapter 8 in How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 179-204.
  • 1997 - Professor Maarten J.J. Menken (Utrecht) - "Isaiah and the 'Hidden Things': The Quotation from Psalm 78:2 in Matthew 13:35." Pages 61-77 in The Use of Sacred Books in the Ancient World. Edited by L.V. Rutgers and P.W. van der Horst. CBET 22. Leuven: Peeters, 1998.
  • 1996 - Professor Richard J. Bauckham (St. Andrews) - "The Scrupulous Priest and the Good Samaritan: Jesus' Parabolic Interpretation of the Law of Moses." NTS 44 (1998): 475-89.
  • 1995 - Professor Raymond E. Brown (Menlo Park, California)
  • 1994 - Professor Heikki Räisänen (Helsinki) - "Liberating Exegesis?", Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 78.1 (1996), 193-204.

The Manchester-Lausanne Seminar

For several years there has been close cooperation between Manchester's Centre for Biblical Studies and the Institut des Sciences Bibliques of the Université de Lausanne. This is part of a wider exchange involving all those interested in the study of religion and theology in the two universities.

In most years a three-day research seminar is organized in either England or Switzerland.

The following publications have resulted from these collaborative seminars:

  • Todd Klutz, Jessica M. Keady, and Casey Strine (eds.), Scripture as Social Discourse: Early Jewish and Christian Writings in Social-Scientific Perspective (London: T&T Clark, 2018).
  • Philip R. Davies and Thomas Römer (eds.), Writing the Bible: Scribes, Scribalism and Script (Bible World; Durham: Acumen, 2013)
  • Michael Tait and Peter Oakes (eds.), Torah in the New Testament (LNTS; London: T&T Clark, 2009)
  • Philip S. Alexander and Jean-Daniel Kaestli (eds.), The Canon of Scripture in Jewish and Christian Tradition/Le canon des Écritures dans les traditions juive et chrétienne (Publications de l’institut romand des sciences bibliques 4; Lausanne: Éditions du Zèbre, 2007)
  • George Brooke and Thomas Römer (eds.), Ancient and Modern Scriptural Historiography–L’Historiographie biblique, ancienne et moderne (BETL 207; Leuven: Peeters, 2007)
  • Thomas Römer (ed.), La Construction de la figure de Moïse/The Construction of the Figure of Moses (Supplément à Transeuphratène 13; Paris: Gabalda, 2007)
  • Todd Klutz (ed.), Magic in the Biblical World: From the Rod of Aaron to the Ring of Solomon (JSNTSup 245; London: T&T Clark, 2003; reissued in paperback, 2004)
  • Adrian H.W. Curtis and Daniel Marguerat (eds.), Intertextualité: La Bible en échos (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2000) 
  • George Brooke and Jean-Daniel Kaestli (eds.), Narrativity in Biblical and Related Texts/La Narrativité dans la Bible et les textes apparentés (BETL 49; Leuven: Peeters, 2000)
  • Adrian H.W. Curtis and Thomas Römer (eds.), The Book of Jeremiah and Its Reception/Le livre de Jérémie et sa réception (BETL 128; Leuven: Peeters, 1997)
  • Daniel Marguerat (ed.), Le déchirement: Juifs et chrétiens au premier siècle (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1996) 
  • Christopher M. Tuckett (ed.), Luke's Literary Achievement: Collected Essays (JSNTSup 116; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995)