Our Next Meeting: THURSDAY 16 February 2012, at 7.30 pm in the Graduate School, University of Hull Cottingham Road campus

Pompeii and St Paul: Using Pompeian Evidence to Think about Early House-Church Life

Dr Peter Oakes (Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies, University of Manchester)

Because of the disaster which befell them in AD 79, the remains of Pompeii and Herculaneum continue to tell us a great deal about urban life in the Roman Empire.  In addition, in recent years the application of the social sciences to biblical interpretation has revealed fresh insights into the New Testament.  In the second of two lectures this year on cities and the Bible, Dr Peter Oakes (author of Reading Romans in Pompeii (2009)) will demonstrate how the Vesuvian towns can help our understanding of the social world of the first Christians.