HOME
*





Polebridge Press
The Westar Institute, founded by Robert W. Funk in 1985, is a member-supported nonprofit educational institute with a twofold mission: * To foster collaborative, cumulative research in religious studies * To communicate the results of the scholarship of religion to a broad, non-specialist public Westar is located in Salem, Oregon, on the campus of Willamette University. The institute has a publishing arm in the form of Polebridge Press, which publishes books, media, and two journals: *''Forum'', an academic journal which publishes scholarly articles on the historical Jesus, Christian origins, and related fields. *''The Fourth R,'' a bimonthly magazine that publishes religious studies research in nontechnical language for at a general audience. Organizational structure Westar is managed by a Board of Directors and staff. Membership is divided into Associate Members, who are members of the public, and Westar Fellows, scholars in the field of religious studies or a cognate discipl ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Robert W
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honour, praise, renown" and ''berht'' "bright, light, shining"). It is the second most frequently used given name of ancient Germanic origin. It is also in use as a surname. Another commonly used form of the name is Rupert. After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form ''Robert'', where an Old English cognate form (''Hrēodbēorht'', ''Hrodberht'', ''Hrēodbēorð'', ''Hrœdbœrð'', ''Hrœdberð'', ''Hrōðberχtŕ'') had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto. Robert is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots, Danish, and Icelandic. It can be use ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Salem, Oregon
Salem ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of Oregon, and the county seat of Marion County, Oregon, Marion County. It is located in the center of the Willamette Valley alongside the Willamette River, which runs north through the city. The river forms the boundary between Marion and Polk County, Oregon, Polk counties, and the city neighborhood of West Salem, Salem, Oregon, West Salem is in Polk County. Salem was founded in 1842, became the capital of the Oregon Territory in 1851, and was incorporated in 1857. Salem had a population of 174,365 in 2019, making it the third-largest city in the state after Portland, Oregon, Portland and Eugene, Oregon, Eugene. Salem is the principal city of the Salem Metropolitan Statistical Area, a United States metropolitan area, metropolitan area that covers Marion and Polk counties and had a combined population of 390,738 at the 2010 census. A 2019 estimate placed the metropolitan population at 400,408, the state's second largest. This area is, in ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Willamette University
Willamette University is a private liberal arts college with locations in Salem and Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1842, it is the oldest college in the Western United States. Originally named the Oregon Institute, the school was an unaffiliated outgrowth of the Methodist Mission. The name was changed to Wallamet University in 1852, followed by the current spelling in 1870. Willamette founded the first medical school and law school in the Pacific Northwest in the second half of the 19th century. The college is a member of the NCAA's Division III Northwest Conference. Approximately 2,100 students are enrolled at Willamette between the graduate and undergraduate programs. History The college was founded as the Oregon Institute by the missionary Jason Lee, who had arrived in what was then known as the Oregon Country in 1834 and had founded the Indian Manual Labor Institute for the education of the local Native Americans. Lee requested additional support for his mission, and recei ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Jesus Seminar
The Jesus Seminar was a group of about 50 critical biblical scholars and 100 laymen founded in 1985 by Robert Funk that originated under the auspices of the Westar Institute.''Making Sense of the New Testament'' by Craig Blomberg (Mar 1, 2004) page 19 The seminar was very active through the 1980s and 1990s, and into the early 21st century. Members of the Seminar used votes with colored beads to decide their collective view of the historicity of the deeds and sayings of Jesus of Nazareth. They produced new translations of the New Testament and apocrypha to use as textual sources. They published their results in three reports: ''The Five Gospels'' (1993),''The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus'' (1993) Polebridge Press (Macmillan), ''The Acts of Jesus'' (1998), ''The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus'' (1998), Harper SanFrancisco, and ''The Gospel of Jesus'' (1999). ''The Gospel of Jesus: According to the Jesus Seminar'' (199 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Historical Jesus
The term "historical Jesus" refers to the reconstruction of the life and teachings of Jesus by critical historical methods, in contrast to religious interpretations. It also considers the historical and cultural contexts in which Jesus lived. Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure, and attempts to deny his historicity have been consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus as a fringe theory.In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees, based on certain and clear evidence." B. Ehrman, 2011 ''Forged: writing in the name of God'' . pp. 256–257Robert M. Price (an atheist who denies the existence of Jesus) agrees that this perspective runs against the views of the majority of scholars: Robert M. Price "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in ''The Historical Jesus: Five Views'' edited by Ja ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza
Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (born 1938) is a Romanian-born German, Roman Catholic feminist theologian, who is currently the Krister Stendahl Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School. Life She was born Elisabeth Schüssler on 17 April 1938 in Cenad, in the Banat region of the Kingdom of Romania, where she belonged to the Banat Swabian German-speaking Catholic population of an ethnically mixed community. As the Russian army advanced through Romania in late 1944, her parents fled with her to southern Germany. They subsequently moved to Frankfurt, where she attended local schools. She then received her ''Theologicum'' (Licentiate of Sacred Theology) from the University of Würzburg in 1963, her thesis published in German as ''Der vergessene Partner'' (''The Forgotten Partner'') in 1964. She subsequently earned the degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology from the University of Münster. In 1967 she married Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, an American theologian who was studying ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Positivism
Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. Gerber, ''Sociology'', Seventh Canadian Edition, Pearson Canada Other ways of knowing, such as theology, metaphysics, intuition, or introspection, are rejected or considered meaningless. Although the positivist approach has been a recurrent theme in the history of western thought, modern positivism was first articulated in the early 19th century by Auguste Comte.. His school of sociological positivism holds that society, like the physical world, operates according to general laws. After Comte, positivist schools arose in logic, psychology, economics, historiography, and other fields of thought. Generally, positivists attempted to introduce scientific methods to their respective fields. Since the turn of the 20th century, positivism has de ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

1985 Establishments In Oregon
The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a new agreement on fishing rights. * January 7 – Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launches ''Sakigake'', Japan's first interplanetary spacecraft and the first deep space probe to be launched by any country other than the United States space exploration programs, United States or the Soviet space program, Soviet Union. * January 15 – Tancredo Neves is Brazilian presidential election, 1985, elected president of Brazil by the National Congress of Brazil, Congress, ending the Military dictatorship in Brazil, 21-year military rule. * January 20 – Ronald Reagan is Second inauguration of Ronald Reagan, privately sworn in for a second term as Presidency of Ronald Reagan, President of the United States. * January 27 – The Eco ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Christian Organizations Established In 1985
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χριστός), a translation of the Biblical Hebrew term ''mashiach'' (מָשִׁיחַ) (usually rendered as ''messiah'' in English). While there are diverse interpretations of Christianity which sometimes conflict, they are united in believing that Jesus has a unique significance. The term ''Christian'' used as an adjective is descriptive of anything associated with Christianity or Christian churches, or in a proverbial sense "all that is noble, and good, and Christ-like." It does not have a meaning of 'of Christ' or 'related or pertaining to Christ'. According to a 2011 Pew Research Center survey, there were 2.2 billion Christians around the world in 2010, up from about 600 million in 1910. Today, about 37% of all Christians live in the Ameri ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Biblical Criticism
Biblical criticism is the use of critical analysis to understand and explain the Bible. During the eighteenth century, when it began as ''historical-biblical criticism,'' it was based on two distinguishing characteristics: (1) the concern to avoid dogma and bias by applying a neutral, non-sectarian, reason-based judgment to the study of the Bible, and (2) the belief that the reconstruction of the historical events behind the texts, as well as the history of how the texts themselves developed, would lead to a correct understanding of the Bible. This sets it apart from earlier, pre-critical methods; from the anti-critical methods of those who oppose criticism-based study; from later post-critical orientation, and from the many different types of criticism which biblical criticism transformed into in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Most scholars believe the German Enlightenment () led to the creation of biblical criticism, although some assert that its roots ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Christian Organizations Based In The United States
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χριστός), a translation of the Biblical Hebrew term ''mashiach'' (מָשִׁיחַ) (usually rendered as ''messiah'' in English). While there are diverse interpretations of Christianity which sometimes conflict, they are united in believing that Jesus has a unique significance. The term ''Christian'' used as an adjective is descriptive of anything associated with Christianity or Christian churches, or in a proverbial sense "all that is noble, and good, and Christ-like." It does not have a meaning of 'of Christ' or 'related or pertaining to Christ'. According to a 2011 Pew Research Center survey, there were 2.2 billion Christians around the world in 2010, up from about 600 million in 1910. Today, about 37% of all Christians live in the Ameri ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Organizations Based In Salem, Oregon
An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from the Greek word ''organon'', which means tool or instrument, musical instrument, and organ. Types There are a variety of legal types of organizations, including corporations, governments, non-governmental organizations, political organizations, international organizations, armed forces, charities, not-for-profit corporations, partnerships, cooperatives, and educational institutions, etc. A hybrid organization is a body that operates in both the public sector and the private sector simultaneously, fulfilling public duties and developing commercial market activities. A voluntary association is an organization consisting of volunteers. Such organizations may be able to operate without legal formalities, depending on jurisdiction, incl ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]