Summer Institute 2018

When:
Thursday, August 2, 5:30 to 9:00 p.m.
Friday, August 3, 5:00 to 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, August 4, 8:30 a.m to 3:30 p.m.

Where:
Gutenberg College
1883 University St.
Eugene, OR 97403

Registration:
Go here to register. Or call the Gutenberg College office: 541-683-5141.

Childcare: If you are interested in childcare, please email for more information.

Cost*: (includes dinner on Friday night; continental breakfast on Saturday morning; and lunch on Saturday) 
Early Registration, Before July 1: 
Individual - $85
Family - $110
Student - $35 

General Registration, Begins July 1: 
Individual - $100
Family - $125 
Student - $40 

Stream the lectures live: $15**
Register here for streaming.

* Financial aid: There are available limited financial aid packages for those who wish to attend. If you wish to apply, please contact the office.

Volunteer opportunities: We can also offer reduced costs for volunteers. If you would like to volunteer, please contact the office.

** Online Streaming:

• Only lectures will be streamed. Discussions will not be streamed.
• A PDF of the reading material will be provided to streamers to read.
• A recording of each of the videos will be available online for a month after the end of the conference.
• Other Details TBA

Lodging:

Limited lodging at Gutenberg College is available. Cost for lodging is $30 per night for a single room and $45 per night for a double room. Please email the Gutenberg office if you are interested in staying at Gutenberg. Space is very limited.
 

Schedule:

Thursday Night

Friday Night

Saturday

Format 

Discussions & Lectures: 
Gutenberg College Summer Institutes are an opportunity to explore a topic while getting some of the “Gutenberg” experience. That is, we discuss readings from important works in our culture and also listen to talks related to the topic. The presenters/discussion leaders are listed below. A reading packet (PDF) will be emailed to participants. 

Thursday Night:
6:30-8:00 p.m. Discussion of Reading One: “How Have We Read the Parables?”
A collection from church history of various approaches to interpreting the parables.

8:10-9:00 p.m. Lecture One
Chris Swanson: “It’s All Greek to Me: How Byzantium Reformed Reading”
After the fall of Rome, medieval thinkers preserved Rome’s twofold legacy, Greek philosophy and Christianity, through a synthesis of faith and reason. One of the key ways they combined the two was through allegorical interpretation of biblical passages. In the early Italian Renaissance, interest in Greek and Roman writings was revived by classical scholars, who set out to bring home and translate newly discovered ancient Greek texts. That interest was enriched by the arrival of noted Greek scholars from the East around the time of the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The combination of Greek textual tools and the Italian enthusiasm for classical origins laid the groundwork for an entirely new approach to biblical interpretation, which was later taken up by the Reformers in northern Europe. This talk will explore medieval and Reformation approaches to biblical interpretation and the fascinating story of how the East reformed reading in the West.

Friday Night: 
6:00-7:30 p.m. Discussion of Reading Two: A section from What is Postmodern Biblical Criticism? by A. K. M. Adam

7:40-8:30 p.m. Lecture Two
Charley Dewberry & Chris Alderman: “Author, Reader, Text: Postmodern Challenges for a Hermeneutic of Faith”
Beginning with Friedrich Nietzsche’s 1880s pronouncement of the “death” of God, modernity has rolled out of bed each morning to find another big name in the obituary column: the Author, metaphysics, the Work. Have reports of their demise been greatly exaggerated, or does the “hermeneutics of suspicion” spell the end of biblical interpretation as we know it? Join us as we explore some of the challenges, epistemological as well as hermeneutic, posed by the work of the major postmodern thinkers.

Saturday Morning: 
9:00-10:30 a.m. Discussion of Reading Three: A section from Kierkegaard’s For Self-Examination.

10:40-11:30 p.m. Lecture Three
Eliot Grasso: “Music and Interpretation: Prescription and Description”
Listening to and performing music is like pursuing Christianity in this critical way: in both cases, a reader/hearer must decide what actions to take and how to take them. To live well before God, Christians are faced with this question after reading the Bible: What should I do? The Bible offers prescriptions and descriptions. Some sections prescribe actions to pursue or to avoid, while other sections describe historical circumstances. But how do I know what I should do? This talk will investigate the parallels between understanding music (both performance and listening) and the prescriptive and descriptive ways of understanding the Bible.

Saturday Afternoon: 
12:30-2:00 p.m. Discussion of Reading Four: “How Did Jesus Read the Bible?”
Several key passages where Jesus speaks to the issue of reading the Scriptures.

2:10-3:00 p.m. Lecture 4
Ron Julian: “Are We All Reading the Same Bible?”
This conference explores approaches to biblical interpretation in church history, in postmodern thought, in the writing of Kierkegaard, and in the teaching of Jesus. This final talk will pull these themes together and will make a case for the power of the Scriptures to communicate to all, in spite of the differing presuppositions with which we start.

Speakers / Discussion Leaders