Five Part Lenten Series on Gospel of Mark

LATROBE, PENNSYLVANIA — A Scripture scholar and Professor of New Testament Studies at Saint Vincent Seminary, Br. Elliott C. Maloney, O.S.B., Ph.D., will give a five-part Lenten program on the Gospel of Mark at Epiphany Chapel in Monessen at 7 p.m. Thursdays during Lent. The program is entitled “Jesus’ Urgent Message for Today: The Eschatology of the Gospel according to Mark.”

The study of the Gospels has made great advances recently by the attention scholars are giving to the social and cultural world of the Holy Land in New Testament times. This new approach has found that the common people of the ancient Circum-Mediterranean world not only thought differently about their universe than modern science-oriented individuals, but that their perception of time, symbol and personhood differed considerably from ours today. Biblical interpretation in Latin America has intuitively been using this non-First World approach to the Gospels for many years because they are culturally very similar to the people of the New Testament world.

Br. Elliott started his research of the Gospel of Mark in his doctoral dissertation which he completed in 1978. Over the past five years he has been studying the new social science approaches and the writings of Latin American scholars. He has made four study trips, doing research in Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, and at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, meeting with biblical scholars, and participating in a great variety of Bible studies on all levels. He is preparing a book in which he applies this new outlook to the Gospel of Mark, especially in its predictions of the future of the Christian Church and its eschatological task of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Br. Elliott is a popular lecturer and writer who is anxious to share the results of his recent research in a Lenten Bible study series at Epiphany Chapel in Monessen. The program will start at 7 p.m. each Thursday. After Br. Elliott’s 50 minute presentation there will be a coffee break and a question-and-answer session for those who wish to stay.

The series topics are:* February 21 — Introduction to the Society and Culture of First-Century Palestine.* February 28 — The Christology of the Gospel according to Mark.* March 7 — The Kingdom of God in Mark’s Gospel.* March 14 — Introduction to New Testament Eschatology.* March 21 — Jesus’ Urgent Message for Today: The Eschatology of Mark’s Gospel.

Br. Elliott grew up in Pittsburgh’s Point Breeze section and went to Holy Rosary grammar school. After prep school in Buffalo, N.Y., he went to Saint Vincent College and took vows as a Benedictine monk in 1966. He received the Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Atheneum of Sant’ Anselmo in Rome in 1972, and the Ph.D. in New Testament Studies from Fordham University where he studied under the famous New Testament scholar Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J. Br. Elliott is Professor of New Testament Studies and Biblical Languages at Saint Vincent Seminary and past chairperson of Religious Studies at Saint Vincent College.

Categories