Young Scholars of Promise

I am currently taking part in events connected with the 2017 Lautenschlaeger Awards for Theological Promise in the University of Heidelberg.  The award is given to ten young scholars on the basis of their doctoral thesis or first book judged to reflect outstanding promise in scholarly work.   The scope of the awards is very broad, as you can see by scanning this year’s winners here.

In my own field, they include Frederick Tappenden’s book, Resurrection in Paul:  Cognition, Metaphor and Transformation, in which Tappenden explores the multiple ways that Paul deploys references to resurrection.  In some texts such as Romans 6, Paul speaks of the power of resurrection-life that can be already at work in his converts, providing inner resources for new life.  In other texts such as Romans 8, however, Paul refers to the future and bodily resurrection of believers in more traditional eschatological mode.

Another winner this year in my field is T. J. Lang’s book, Mystery and the Making of a Christian Historical Consciousness:  From Paul to the Second Century.  Lang contends that there is a development or shift from Paul’s use of the term mysterion (Greek = “secret”) to the subsequent usage in which it becomes part of an early Christian organization of history into a period promise and one of fulfilment.

All the winners are impressive young scholars, and it is an honor and privilege to take part of identifying such promising scholars and helping in giving them the unique recognition represented in these Lautenschlaeger Awards.