Dr. John Bergsma is Professor of Theology at Franciscan University, in Steubenville, Ohio. He holds a Master of Theology degree from Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He also holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in Theology from the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic university, Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend, Indiana, South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin fo ...

. His specialized study is that of the Old Testament and the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...

. He grew up as a Calvinist Protestant and served as a

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

pastor for four years before converting to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

in 2001.

Career

Dr. Bergsma's study of ancient scripture and the Dead Sea Scrolls have spawned multiple articles and publications, including his book ''The Jubilee from Leviticus to Qumran: A History of Interpretation''. He has written several scholarly articles, some of which were co-authored by Catholic apologist and theologian Dr. Scott Hahn. Additionally, Dr. Bergsma has taken part in several seminars and discussions, including the Enoch seminar and that of the

Jubilee A jubilee is a particular anniversary of an event, usually denoting the 25th, 40th, 50th, 60th, and the 70th anniversary. The term is often now used to denote the celebrations associated with the reign of a monarch after a milestone number of y ...

. Dr. Bergsma routinely participates in lectures on his studies, and has contributed to media productions distributed by Lighthouse Catholic Media. With regard to the discovery and study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, his focus often includes how the scrolls reaffirm Catholic doctrine, tradition, and practices.St. Paul Center For Biblical Theology - ''John Bergsma On The Dead Sea Scrolls'' (Posted by Dr. Michael Barber on 11/10/2011), Retrieved 07/19/2012
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Books

* * * * * ''Psalm Basics for Catholics: Seeing Salvation History in a New Way''. Ave Maria Press 2018. . * With Brant Pitre ''A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament''. Ignatius Press, 2018. . * ''Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Revealing the Jewish Roots of Christianity''. Image 2019. .

References

External links

John Bergsma - Official Home Page

Lighthouse Catholic Media
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bergsma, John Converts to Roman Catholicism from Calvinism Living people 1971 births 20th-century American Roman Catholic theologians 21st-century American Roman Catholic theologians