KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Archbishop Dr Alexander Golitzin (D.Phil., Oxford University, 1980) is Emeritus Professor of Theology at Marquette University and currently Archbishop of the South and of the Bulgarian Diocese in the Orthodox Church in America. His scholarship is focused on the Eastern Christian ascetical and mystical tradition, with a particular eye toward continuities and parallels with, respectively, inter-testamental and Rabbinic Judaism. Among his are Et introibo ad altare dei: The Mystagogy of Dionysius Areopagita (Thessalonika, 1994), St Symeon the New Theologian on the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses (3 vols., St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1995-1997), Mystagogy: A Monastic Reading of Dionysius Areopagita (Cistercian Publications, 2013), And a translation of Jacob of Sarug's Homily on the Chariot that Prophet Ezekiel Saw (Gorgias, 2016), and numerous scholarly articles.
Rabbi Reuven R. Kimelman (Ph. D. Yale University, 1977) is Professor of Classical Judaica at Brandeis University, specializing in the history of Judaism with a focus on the history and meaning of the Jewish liturgy. He teaches courses and directs doctoral work in Talmud, Midrash, Liturgy, Ethics, and the Jewish Political tradition. His previous book is The Mystical Meaning of ‘Lekhah Dodi’ and ‘Kabbalat Shabbat’ (The Hebrew University Magnes Press). His forthcoming book, The Rhetoric of the Jewish Liturgy: A Historical and Literary Commentary on the Daily Prayer Book (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2025) integrates material from biblical literature, Second Temple literature, rabbinic literature, early Christian literature, the Cairo Genizah, classical piyyut, and medieval manuscripts and commentary, along with modern philological, literary, and historical research. It is announced as “the first comprehensive academic study of the Jewish liturgy in over a century."
PRESENTERS*
Rev. Dr Silviu N. Bunta (PhD in Hebrew Bible 2006, Marquette University) specializes in the study of Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins, focusing particularly on mystical trends in pseudepigraphic and apocalyptic literature, as well as in Christian liturgy. He has published The Lord God of Gods. Divinity and Deification in Early Judaism (Gorgias Press, 2021) and Greek Grammar: Biblical and Patristic. Vol 1: Morphology (Cherubim Press, 2021), an English translation of the 3-volume Ieratikon and the Diakonikon of the Simonopetra tradition. Forthcoming are a book on Orthodox Hermeneutics (“The Life of Our Fathers”: An Introduction to the Bible in the Orthodox Church) and, with Archbishop Alexander (Golitzin), an annotated translation of Dionysius the Areopagite’s Hierarchies. His articles have been published by Vigiliae christianae, Journal of Jewish Studies, Journal for the Study of Judaism, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Henoch, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly.
Dr Benjamin Sommer is Professor of Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary and Senior Fellow at the Kogod Center for Contemporary Jewish Thought of the Shalom Hartman Institute. His book, Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition (Yale University Press, 2015), received the Goldstein-Goren Prize in Jewish thought from Ben Gurion University. His earlier books, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge, 2009) and A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66 (Stanford University Press, 1998), received awards from the American Academy of Religion, the Association for Jewish Studies, and the American Academy for Jewish Research.
Dr Alexey B. Somov is a research fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies, research project "Beyond Canon" (FOR 2770), Universität Regensburg, and an associate professor of Holy Scripture at St. Philaret’s Institute, Moscow, Russia. He also works as a translation consultant with the Institute for Bible Translation, Moscow. He is the author of Representations of the Afterlife in Luke-Acts (T&T Clark, 2017) and The Martyrdom of Daniel and the Three Youths (Cascade Books, 2025, forthcoming) along with of a number of scholarly articles on Biblical exegesis, translation, and the reception history of the Bible.
Dr Christopher Barina Kaiser (PhD in Christian Dogmatics and Divinity, University of Edinburgh, 1974; PhD in Astro-Geophysics, University of Colorado, 1968) is Emeritus Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Western Theological Seminary. After decades of teaching and writing on matters of Historical Theology and Theology in Relation to Modern Science and Technology, he is currently working in the areas of New Testament Christology in the context of early Jewish devotional and exegetical practices. Of special relevance to our Symposium are his publications, Seeing the Lord’s Glory: Kyriocentric Visions and the Dilemma of Early Christology (Fortress Press, 2014) and “YHWH Texts in the New Testament and Early Judaism: Disjunctive or Doxological?,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 64 (2020): 27–70.
Dr Isaac W. Oliver/de Oliveira (PhD in Near Eastern Studies 2012, University of Michigan) is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Bradley University; he was a fellow at the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies in the Fall of 2012 and directeur d'études invité at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Spring 2023. He has authored numerous studies dealing with ancient Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, including, Torah Praxis after 70 CE: Reading Matthew and Luke-Acts as Jewish Texts (Mohr Siebeck, 2013; repr. Wipf & Stock, 2023) and Luke’s Jewish Eschatology: The National Restoration of Israel in Luke-Acts (Oxford University Press, 2021), and is preparing a commentary on the Gospel of Luke for the Oxford Bible Commentary Series. He has also published a number of articles in journals and collective volumes. He is the founder of Talmud for Everyone, a non-profit educational organization that facilitates the study of the Talmud for people of all genders and cultural backgrounds (talmudforeveryone.com).
Dr Michal Bar-Asher Siegal is Associate Professor in the Goldstein-Goren department for Jewish Thought, and Vice President for Global Engagement at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. She works in the areas of Rabbinics and Early Christianity, focusing on Jewish-Christian interactions, monasticism, and Syriac Christianity. She is the author of two monographs—Early Christian Monastic Literature and the Babylonian Talmud (Cambridge, 2013) and Jewish–Christian Dialogues on Scripture in Late Antiquity: Heretic Narratives of the Babylonian Talmud (Cambridge, 2019)—, three co-edited volumes—The Faces of Torah: Studies in the Texts and Contexts of Ancient Judaism in Honor of Steven Fraade (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017), Perceiving the Other in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (Mohr Siebeck, 2017) and Social History of the Jews in Antiquity: Studies in Dialogue with Albert Baumgarten (Mohr Siebeck, 2021)— and several studies published in Hebrew and English.
Dr Adrian C. Pirtea (PhD 2017, Freie Universität Berlin) is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. A specialist in the intellectual and religious history of the Eastern Mediterranean, Syria, and Mesopotamia, his main area of research is the history of Eastern Christianity (ca. 300-1500 CE), with a particular interest in monasticism in the Eastern Mediterranean. Currently, he is the Principal Investigator of the ERC Starting Grant “Reviving the Ascetic Ideal in the Eastern Mediterranean: Entangled Memories of Early Egyptian Asceticism in Syriac, Arabic and Armenian Christianity (969-1375 CE)”, which runs from October 2023 to September 2028. His recent publications include "The Syriac Fathers" in The Oxford Handbook of Deification, ed. by P. Gavrilyuk, A. Hofer, M. Levering (forthcoming 2024).
Rev. Dr Bogdan G. Bucur (PhD in Religious Studies 2007, Marquette University) is Associate Professor of Patristics at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. He is the author of Angelomorphic Pneumatology: Clement of Alexandria and Other Early Christian Witnesses (Brill, 2009) and Scripture Re-envisioned: Christophanic Exegesis and the Making of a Christian Bible (Brill, 2018), along with several articles in the areas of biblical reception history and Patristics. He serves as a priest in the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America.
Rev. Dr Dragoș Andrei Giulea (PhD in Philosophy 2003, Romanian Academy; PhD in Religious Studies 2010, Marquette University) is an independent scholar specializing in Christian origins, patristics, and philosophy. He has published three monographs: Being and Process in Noica's Ontology (Humanitas, 2004), Pre-Nicene Christology in Paschal Contexts (Brill, 2013), and Antioch, Nicaea, and the Synthesis of Constantinople (Brill, 2024) and several studies in the areas of early Christianity and patristics in international journals such as Harvard Theological Review, Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum, Vigiliae Christianae, Orientalia Christiana Periodica, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, and several others.
Dr Emanuel Fiano (PhD in Early Christianity, Duke University) is Assistant Professor of Syriac Studies at Fordham University, where he is also affiliated with Jewish Studies, Orthodox Christian Studies, and Medieval Studies. A native of Rome, he researches and teaches the intellectual history of late ancient Christianity, with a focus on religious controversies, Christian-Jewish relations, Syriac and Coptic literature, and more recently canonical and legal literature. His recent book, Three Powers in Heaven: The Emergence of Theology and the Parting of the Ways (Yale University Press, 2023), analyzes the relevance of fourth-century Trinitarian controversies for the so-called “parting of ways” between Christianity and Judaism.
Rev. Dr Michael Azar (PhD in New Testament, Fordham University, 2013, and ThM, St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, 2005) is Associate Professor of Theology/Religious Studies at the University of Scranton. He teaches classes on the Bible, early Christian-Jewish formation, and Christianity in the Middle East. His current research focuses on ancient and modern Christian-Jewish interaction, particularly in light of Orthodox Christian hermeneutics and the historic presence of Orthodox Christianity in the Holy Land. He is the author of Exegeting the Jews: The Early Reception of the Johannine “Jews” (Brill, 2016) as well as several articles related to Eastern Christian-Jewish interaction. He is currently a special advisor to the Orthodox Chair of the Orthodox Christian-Jewish dialogue as well as a member of its planning committee.
* Speaker bios listed in the order of the scheduled talks.
