Inaugural Seán Freyne Memorial Lecture

Posted on: 24 March 2017

The Inaugural Seán Freyne Memorial Lecture took place this week in Trinity College Dublin.

Professor Freyne (1935-2013), was the founding Professor of Theology in Trinity’s original School of Hebrew, Biblical and Theological Studies. He served the University for almost thirty years and established the first non-denominational setting for the study of the Bible and theology within the humanities at an Irish university.

Hosted by the Department of Religions & Theology, the memorial lecture, Weeds and Trees and Galilee: Revisiting Ecological Readings of the Gospel, was delivered by Professor Elaine Wainwright, Professor Emerita and Head of Theology for 13 years at the University of Auckland. Professor Wainwright is a New Testament scholar specialising in the Gospel of Matthew and in contemporary approaches to reading biblical texts, especially feminist, postcolonial and ecological.

The Freyne Library, donated by the family of Seán Freyne, was opened by Provost Patrick Prendergast in 2014 and is located in Trinity’s Department of Religions and Theology. Its collection of 3,000 books offers multiple avenues to the region with which Professor Freyne’s international reputation is associated: Galilee as a context for the ministry of Jesus and for the emergence of the early Jesus movement.