Full-time and Part-time Staff » Professor Sean Freyne

Professor Sean Freyne, photo by Catherine Hezser

Director of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies, Emeritus Professor of Theology

Contact:

Room 6013, Arts Building
Phone: 01-896-1368
Email: sfreyne@tcd.ie

Academic Degrees and Distinctions:

1956 B.A. Ancient Classics, National University of Ireland.
1959 B.D. Pontifical University, Maynooth.
1962 Licentiate in Sacred Scripture, Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome and Jerusalem.
1965 S.T.D. Saint Thomas University, Rome.
1972-3 Research Fellowship Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, Institutum Judaicum, University of Tübingen, including Sabbatical visits, 1984 and 1998.
1982 M.A. Trinity College, honoris officii .
1982 Fellow, Trinity College, Dublin.
1984-Trustee, Chester Beatty Library and Gallery of Oriental Art.
1986 2000 Member of Editorial Board and Director for Numbers on Exegesis, Concilium. An International Journal of Theology, Nijmegen.
1988-90 Editorial Board member, New Testament Studies , Cambridge.
1989- Member of the Royal Irish Academy.
2005- President-elect, Society for the Study of the New Testament

Posts:

2002- Director, Centre for Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies.
1980-2002 Professor of Theology and (until 1997) Head of School of Hebrew, Biblical and Theological Studies, Trinity College.
1979-80 Lecturer, Department of Studies in Religion, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
1976-79 Professor, Loyola University, New Orleans, La.
1969-75 Lecturer and (from 1972) Professor of New Testament, Pontifical University, Maynooth.
1965-9 Lecturer in Biblical Studies, St. Columban's Missionary Seminary, Dalgan Park, Navan, Ireland.

Visiting Positions and Guest Lectures:

1979 University of Notre Dame, Ind. Fall Semester
1984 Tulane University, New Orleans, La. Chair of Jewish-Christian Relations
1989 First International Conference on Galilean Studies Kibbuz Hanaton, Israel: 'Urban-Rural Relations in First-Century Galilee'.
1995 Visiting Scholar, St. George's College, Jerusalem: 'The Social World of First Century Judaism' (3 lectures and field trip to Galilee
1997
- (i) Lund University, Sweden. 'Re-imaging Christian Origins'.
- (ii) Second International Conference on Galilean Studies, Duke University, N.C. 'Behind the Names: Galileans, Samaritans and Ioudaioi'
- 1998 Annual Sigmund Mowinckel Guest Lecture, University of Oslo: 'The Messiahs of Judaism and their Social Contexts'
1999 Visiting Skirball Fellow, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Yarnton, Oxford
2000 Gunning Lectures, New College, University of Edinburgh.
2002 J.J. Thiessen Lectures, Canadian Mennonite University, Winnipeg, Canada
2004
- (i) Keynote Address, Yale International Symposion on Galilean Studies
- (ii) Department of Religion and Theology, Auckland University, New Zealand, guest lecture
- (iii) Melbourne School of Divinity, guest lecture

Research Interests:

My original research interest based on my doctoral dissertation dealt with Redaction Criticism of the Synoptic Gospels. I still retain an interest in this area, keeping abreast of literary and sociological approaches to the gospels. My most recent work in this field relates to the genre of the gospels, particularly in the context of ancient biography and its social roles.

Arising from my work on the social and religious world of Galilee in Hellenistic and Roman times, I have been drawn into the current 'third wave' of historical Jesus studies. I have received many invitations to contribute articles and papers on this subject as evidenced in the list of my published and forthcoming papers. My most recent publication, Jesus a Jewish Galilean (2004) gathers together many of my ideas on both Jesus and Galilee developed over the years.

Over the past number of years the focus of my research has been on the effort to integrate historical and archaeological evidence in the study of social and cultural relations in Hellenistic and Roman Palestine. My original training in Ancient Classics was supplemented by the study of Ancient Near Eastern languages and literature, yet these two worlds, so closely related in terms of cultural affiliations and borrowings, seemed never to meet in the scholarly debates. This inter-disciplinary project has involved a familiarisation with diverse disciplines such as epigraphy, numismatics, ceramics, art and architectural history, dealing with the Mediterranean region. It was this interest that prompted the idea for the joint research project between our School and the School of Classics, of which I am currently the Director, namely, Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies. This initiative is funded by the Higher Education Authoity's Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions. The project is inter-disciplinary and we are fortunate that at Trinity College the expertise and interest is available to engage in this cutting edge research in the Humanities. Within the framework of this programme I am currently working on a major study, provisionally entitled . Indigenous Cultures and Religious Belief in the Greco-Roman Near East.

During tenure of the Skirball Visiting Fellowship at the Oxford Centre for Jewish studies my research focus was on the topic of Jews and Jesus, paying special attention to the 19 th century interest in 'Heimholung Jesus in das Judentum.' My recent study of Jesus has been inspired in part by that research and I plan to follow this up with another study, Jews, Muslims and Jesus.

Publications - Books:

(1970) The Twelve, Disciples and Apostles. An Introduction to the Theology of the First Three Gospels, London, Sheed and Ward, 1968.
(1980a) Galilee from Alexander the Great to Hadrian . A Study of Second Temple Judaism, Notre Dame and Wilmington,: Notre Dame University Press/Michael Glazier, 1980 (Reprinted Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1998)
(1980b) The World of the New Testament, Wilmington and Dublin: Michael Glazier and Veritas)
(1988) Galilee, Jesus and the Gospels. Literary Approaches and Historical Investigations, Dublin and Minneapolis: Gill and Macmillan and Augsburg - Fortress, 1988.
(1996) A Galileia, Jesus e los Evangelhos. Enfoques literarios investigacoes historicas, (Edicoes Loyola 19, Sao Paolo, Brazil) Portuguese translation of Galilee, Jesus and the Gospels).
(2000) Galilee and Gospel. Selected Essays, Tübingen, J.C.B. Mohr, (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 125, ed. Professor M. Hengel). (Paperback edition, Brill, USA, 2001).
(2002) Texts, Contexts and Cultures. Essays on Biblical Topics, Dublin, Veritas.
(2004) Jesus, a Jewish Galilean. A New Reading of the Jesus Story, London and New York: T. and T. Clark International (Continuum).

Publications - Edited Collections:

(1974) Jesus Christ Our Lord, Papers of the Maynooth Union Summer School, 1971, Dublin: Talbot Press.
(1988) Truth and its Victims, Concilium, (with A. Weiler and W. Beuken). Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark.
(1991a) The Bible and its Readers, Concilium, (with A. Weiler and W. Beuken), London: SCM Press.
(1991b) Ethics and the Christian, Dublin: the Columba Press.
(1993) Messianism through History,Concilium, (with A. Weiler and W. Beuken), London: SCM Press.
(1995) The Bible as Cultural Heritage, Concilium, (with W. Beuken).
(1998b) Is the World Ending? Concilium (with N. Lash). London: SCM Press.
(2002) The Many Voices of the Bible, Concilium, (with Ellen van Wolde), London: SCM Press.

Publications - Selected Recent and Forthcoming Articles:

(1997) 'Cities, Hellenistic and Roman' and 'Galilee in the Hellenistic through the Byzantine Periods', in E. Meyers editor in chief, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, 5 vols. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, vol. 2, 29-34 and 370-376.
(2000a) 'The Galilean World of Jesus,' in P. Esler ed. The Early Christian World, (2 vols. Routledge: London), Vol. I, 113-135.
(2000b) 'Millennium, Jubilee and Jesus' and 'Rethinking the Jubilee in Ireland Today,' Doctrine and Life 50,1(2000) 39-50 and 50,2(2000) 72-80.
(2001a) 'Galileans, Phoenicians and Itureans: A Study of Regional Contrasts in the Hellenistic Age,' in J.J. Collins and G. Sterling eds. Hellenism in the Land of Israel, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 184 - 217.
(2001b) 'God as Experience and Mystery. The Early Christian Understanding,' in W. Jeanrond and C. Theobald eds. God: Experience and Mystery. Concilium 2001/1 , London: SCM Press, 74-84.
(2001c) 'The Geography of Restoration. Galilee-Jerusalem Relations in Early Jewish and Christian Experience,' NTS 47(2001) 289-311.
(2001d) 'In the Beginning was the Word,' in P. McGarry ed. Christianity, (Irish Times and Veritas), 86-92.
(2001e) 'La Galileé et la Judée: l'Environnment Social de Jésus,' in J.-M Mayeur, Ch. et L. Pietri, A. Vauchez, M. Venard (eds.) Histoire du Christianisme, Tome XIV, Anamnèsis, (Paris: Desclée, 2001) 324-355.
(2001f) 'A Galilean Messiah?' Studia Theologica (Lund) 51, 198-218.
(2002a) 'The Revolt and the Regions,' in Andrea M. Berlin and J. Andrew Overman eds. The First Jewish Revolt. Archaeology, History and Ideology, London: Routledge, 43-66.
(2002b) 'Christological Conflicts in the Johannine Community,' in S. Freyne and E.van Wolde eds. The Many Voices of the Bible, Concilium 2002/1 (London: SCM Press).
(2002c) 'Studying the Jewish Diaspora in Antiquity,' in J.R. Bartlett ed. Jews in the Hellenistic and Roman Cities, (London: Routledge), 1-9.
(2003) 'Re-imaging Christian Origins: the Jesus-Paul Debate Revisited.' In K. O'Mahoney ed. Christian Origins, Worship, Belief and Society (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 143-162.
(2004) 'Early Christian Imagination and the Gospels' in C. Horton ed. The Earliest Gospels. The Origin and Transmission of the Earliest Gospel - Chester Beatty Gospel Codex P45, London: T. and T. Clark International, 2-12.
(2004) 'Galilee and Judea: the Social World of Jesus' in S. McKnight and G. Osborne eds. The Face of New Testament Studies: A Survey of Recent Research (Grand Rapids: Baker Books), 21-35.
(2004) 'Dionysos and Herakles in Galilee: the Sepphoris Mosaic in Context,' in D.ouglas R. Edwards ed. Religion and Society in Roman Palestine. Old Questions, New Approaches, London and New York: Routledge, 56-69.
(Forthcoming) 'Archaeology and the Historical Jesus,' in J. Charlesworth ed. Jesus and Archaeology, (Winona Lake: Eisenbraun).
(Forthcoming) 'Mark's Gospel and Ancient Biography,' in J. Mossman ed. The Limits of Biography, (London: Routledge).
(Forthcoming) 'Galilee and Judea: the Social and Religious Setting of the Ministry of Jesus,' in M. Mitchell and F. Young eds. Early Christianity. The Origins to Constantine. The Cambridge History of Christianity , vol.1, (Cambridge: C.U.P.)

Membership of Professional Associations:

I am a member of the following learned bodies:

Irish Biblical Association (Past President)
Irish Theological Association
Catholic Biblical Association of America
Society for the Study of the New Testament
Society of Biblical Literature
American Society of Oriental Research
European Association for the Study of Judaism

Graduate Direction:

C. O'Callaghan(Ph.D): "A Gleaner Following the Grape-Pickers." The Jewish Scribe, Ben Sira, as Interpreter of Biblical Tradition in pre-Maccabean Hellenistic Judea. (1997). ]
V. Lawson (Ph.D): Women in Luke-Acts. A Feminist Reading. (1997).
M. Daly-Denton (Ph.D): David in the Fourth Gospel. The Johannine Reception of the Psalms (1997). Published in M. Hengel and P. Schäfer, (eds) Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Antiken Judentums und Urchristentums XLV11, Leiden: Brill, 2000).
D. Edgar (Ph.D): "Has not God chosen the Poor?" The Social Setting of the Epistle of James (1997). Published by Sheffield Academic Press, JSNT Supplements, 2002.
K O'Mahoney (Ph.D.): Pauline Persuasion. A Sounding in 2Cor 8-9 (1998). Published by Sheffield Academic Press, JSNT Supplement Series 199, (2000).
S. de Paor (Ph.D): A Study of the Irish Commentary on Saint Paul contained in Freising Manuscript Clm 6235 (1998).
T.M. Rouse (M.Litt): Developing a Method of Reading the Bible in Present Contexts of Mission as applied to the Issue of Vanua (Land) in Fiji. (1998).
Z. Rodgers (Ph.D): Josephus: Patriot, Priest, Politician (1998).
A. O'Keeffe (Ph.D): House as Key to Understanding Acts of the Apostles within the Roman Imperial Context. (Examined, 2001).
B. Devitt (Ph.D): Galilee from 44 - 66 CE: A Critical Reading of Josephus (projected completion date, September 2005).

Contact: jwelch@tcd.ie | Last updated: Jan 25 2008 | Back to top

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