What Are They Saying About…. St. Paul, the Apostle, his Writings and Influence on the Christian Churches

Holy Family Parish in will be hosting Professor Pheme Perkins of Boston College on Tuesday, January 24. Professor Perkins is part of a year-long program of special adult Faith Formation sessions under the rubric What Are They Saying About….? In this session, Dr. Perkins will discuss St. Paul, the Apostle, his writings and influence on the Christian churches.

PHEME PERKINS (b. 1945; A.B. St. John’s Annapolis, 1966; PhD. Harvard University, 1971) is Professor of New Testament in the Theology Department at Boston College. She is a research specialist in the Coptic Gnostic texts from Nag Hammadi. Her broader interests include hermeneutics, New Testament theology, John and Paul. She was the first woman president of the Catholic Biblical Association of  America and serves on many editorial boards including the Anchor Yale Bible and Catholic Biblical Quarterly. She is Associate Editor of the New Oxford Annotated Bible (3^rd and 4^th editions). Her most recent book is Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels (2007).  Her commentary on 1 Corinthians will be published by Baker Academic (2012).  She is an active parishioner at Good Shepherd Parish, Wayland where she writes a weekly column for the parish bulletin, leads the Adult Faith Formation book group, has a weekly Bible study and prayer service for seniors, as well as serving as Lector and Eucharistic minister. She is an occasional contributor to the new monthly Mass and prayer booklet, Give Us This Day published by Liturgical Press and to their magazine, Bible Today as well as America magazine.

Dr. Perkins writes: “The apostle Paul was not the imposing figure in stained glass or the flowery rhetorician of the Lectionary.   Thanks to scholarly studies of  the diversity of first century CE Judaism and the formation of  occupational, social and religious associations in the ancient world, Paul is emerging as the dynamic, innovative founder of  new religious communities.  He struggled with opposition from civic authorities, other Christian apostles and even his own churches but never lost his faith in Christ.”

The talk will be held at the Holy Family Parish office building located at 55 Church Street in West Concord immediately behind the New Church and opposite the Concord Council on Aging building at 7:30 PM.  A donation of $5 – 10 is deeply appreciated.