This Wednesday evening class will look at both Old and New Testament texts to explore the earliest Jewish and Christian traditions on death and the afterlife. The multi-week series will allow us to take up an array of ancient perspectives on this topic. We will examine relevant texts outside of Scripture, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, to show that Christian beliefs on the afterlife did not exist in a vacuum. Lent provides an appropriate season for addressing our ultimate destiny and the witness of sacred sources on death and the afterlife.
Taught by Dr. Samuel L. Adams, Old Testament Professor at Union Theological Seminary
Adams’s interests include the Wisdom literature of the Old Testament and ancient Near East, the Prophetic Books, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Egyptology, and biblical theology. He recently published the monograph, Wisdom in Transition: Act and Consequences in Second Temple Instructions (Brill, 2008). An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Adams has served churches in both New Haven, CT, and Chicago, IL.
