Posted by Mary Wimberley on 2007-08-16

New Testament scholar Richard B. Hays will present this year's Holley-Hull lecture at Samford University Thursday, Sept. 6, at 10 a.m. in Reid Chapel. The public is invited.

Hays is the author of Moral Vision of the New Testament, which Christianity Today magazine named one of the top 100 most important religious books of the 20th century.

Professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School, Durham, N.C., Hays is considered one of the world's leading New Testament scholars. His work focuses on New Testament ethics, the Pauline epistles and early Christian interpretation of the Old Testament. He holds a master's from Yale Divinity School and a Ph.D. from Emory University.

Recently, Hays has been critical of Dan Brown's best-selling The Da Vinci Code for its controversial historical claims.

His topic at Samford will be "Standing by the Fire: Living in John's Symbolic World." He will address a Samford faculty group on Thursday afternoon and speak at Mountain Brook Baptist Church on Wednesday evening, Sept. 5.

The Samford presentation is part of the school's annual Howard L. and Martha H. Holley Lectures: New Testament Voices for a Contemporary Word in Honor of Dr. William E. Hull. Dr. Hull is Samford research professor and retired provost.

 
Samford is a leading Christian university offering undergraduate programs grounded in the liberal arts with an array of nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. Founded in 1841, Samford is the 87th-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Samford enrolls 5,791 students from 49 states, Puerto Rico and 16 countries in its 10 academic schools: arts, arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, health professions, law, nursing, pharmacy and public health. Samford fields 17 athletic teams that compete in the tradition-rich Southern Conference and ranks 6th nationally for its Graduation Success Rate among all NCAA Division I schools.