Posted by William Nunnelley on 2008-03-20

Dr. R. Alan Culpepper, founding dean of McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University, will deliver the inaugural Ray Frank Robbins Lecture in Religion at Samford University Thursday, March 27.

He will speak at 10 a.m. in Reid Chapel. The program is open to the public free.

Culpepper is a New Testament scholar who taught at Baylor University prior to becoming dean at McAfee. He is New Testament editor for the Smyth and Helwys Bible Commentary and for the Biblical Interpretation Series published by E.J. Brill, and is on the editorial board for the Library of New Testament Studies.

Culpepper has written nine books including Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel and John the Son of Zebedee. 

The late Ray Frank Robbins was also a New Testament scholar who taught at Samford in the l940s and ´50s and later at New Orleans Baptist Seminary and Mississippi College. He also served churches as an interim pastor during a career that spanned 50 years. Following his death in 2003, his family established the Ray Frank Robbins Lectureship at Samford.

 
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.