Tuesday, April 8, 2008 @ 7:30pm FREE
Innis Town Hall
(2 Sussex Ave.)

In How Jesus Became Christian, Barrie Wilson asks “How did a young rabbi become the god of a religion he wouldn’t recognize, one which was established through the use of calculated anti-Semitism?” 

Colourfully recreating the world of Jesus Christ, Wilson brings the answer to life by looking at the rivalry between the “Jesus movement,” informed by the teachings of Matthew and adhering to Torah worship, and the “Christ movement,” headed by Paul, which shunned Torah. Wilson suggests that Paul’s movement was not rooted in the teachings and sayings of the historical Jesus, but solely in Paul’s mystical vision of Christ, a man Paul actually never met. He then shows how Paul established the new religion through anti-Semitic propaganda, which ultimately crushed the Jesus Movement. Sure to be controversial, this is an exciting, well-written popular religious history that cuts to the heart of the differences between Christianity and Judaism, to the origins of one of the world’s great religions and, ultimately, to the question of who Jesus Christ really was–a Jew or a Christian.

Barrie Wilson is the Humanities and Religious Studies professor at Toronto’s York University.

Patrick Gray, B.A. (Toronto), S.T.B. (Trinity), S.T.M. (Yale), Th.D. (Trinity), discovered in the course of his S.T.B. at Trinity that what fascinated him most was the formative period of theology, the age of the Church Fathers. A Master’s at Yale helped him hone in on Christology, and on the period after the Council of Chalcedon, as the focus for his doctoral research, which he completed under Eugene Fairweather at Trinity. Providentially, he also fell in love with teaching, first as a Tutor in the Faculty of Divinity at Trinity, and then in a parish setting as the curate at the Church of St. Simon-the-Apostle, where he also became engaged in issues of social justice. Teaching jobs materialized at York University, McMaster Divinity College, and again at York. He has published one book, The Defense of Chalcedon in the East (451-553), and numerous articles, many on aspects of the christological controversies of the age of Justinian. He is just completing a career-long project on one of the Sixth Century’s most important theologians, Leontius of Jerusalem, and is negotiating with the aim of publishing the text, a translation, and a historical introduction. Outside of academia, Patrick is Honorary Assistant at St. Stephen’s Church in Maple.

Special thanks to our sponsors

and

Thursday, March 6, 2008 @ 7:30pm FREE
Innis Town Hall
(2 Sussex Ave.)

The University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies (SCS) and U of T Bookstore are pleased to announce participation in the inaugural U of T Festival of the Arts, which celebrates a rich range of creative talent across all three campuses during three weeks in March. (www.arts.utoronto.ca).

On Thursday, we will host readings by an outstanding line-up of authors including 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize Winner Dr. Vincent Lam. Celebrated authors Marina Nemat and Alissa York, and poet Edward Carson will read as well. Novelist Lee Gowan, who heads up SCS’s Creative Writing Program, says the School’s literary community is thriving. “We are thrilled and honoured to be able to shine a spotlight on such sparkling talent, on four incredible writers affiliated with SCS.”

Book-signing will follow. The writers are featured below in order of appearance.

2007 Scotiabank Giller Prize Nominee Alissa York is the author of award-winning short fiction and the national bestselling novels, Mercy and, most recently, Effigy. York is currently teaching Writing Short Fiction: Master Class at the School of Continuing Studies and will teach the Short Fiction Workshop at their popular Summer Writing School from July 7 – 11, 2008.

Award-winning poet and U of T Alumnus Edward Carson will read from his second book of poetry Taking Shape, to be released in March, 2008. Formerly the President of Penguin Group (Canada), Carson is now the Chief Business Officer and Associate Director of the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies.

School of Continuing Studies Creative Writing Certificate holder and international bestselling author, Marina Nemat reads from her memoir, Prisoner of Tehran. Her book first took shape as a project in one of instructor Lee Gowan’s creative writing courses. Her book has been nominated for several awards and Nemat was recently awarded the Human Dignity Prize by the European Parliament.

Dr. Vincent Lam’s short story collection, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures won the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Now 33, Lam was the youngest ever to win the award. His collection was recently nominated for the Story Prize, a prestigious annual US-based award. Lam is an emergency physician and former student of the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies Creative Writing Summer School.

Special thanks to our sponsor

Wednesday, March 5, 2008 @ 7:30pm FREE
Innis Town Hall
(2 Sussex Ave.)

For everyone who’s curious about what’s new under (and over and around) the stars.

 Douglas Adams famously pronounced in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that the answer to life, the universe, and everything was 42. Quirks & Quarks, whose approach to science owes almost as much to Adams as it does to Newton or Einstein or Hawking, have flipped that notion through a gap in the space-time continuum (or something like that) and come up with answers to the 42 essential questions about space.

 Much about the universe is very hard for most of us to grasp, and if anyone can explain these mind-bending aspects of the heavens above, it’s the Quirks & Quarks producers, who have been bringing Canadians understandable science, with trademark humour, for more than thirty years. In their Space Book, they answer such pressing questions as Where does space begin? Why is most of the universe missing? Is there intelligent life in the universe? And the real puzzler: What came before the Big Bang? They also answer questions we wish we’d thought to ask, such as Can you surf a gravity wave? and Why is the universe’s temperature on my TV? There are answers as well to far more practical questions, like What happens when you fall into a black hole? and How will the universe end? The answers, which have been vetted by a team of astronomers, are witty, authoritative, in-depth, accurate, up-to-date astronomically, and, of course, quirky.

Jim Lebans Every week, Quirks & Quarks presents the people behind the latest scientific discoveries, and examines the political, social, environmental, and ethical implications of new developments in science and technology. Over its lifetime, the program has won more than forty national and international awards for science journalism. Jim Lebans is a producer and the resident space expert at Q&Q.

Bob McDonald Besides being the host of Quirks & Quarks, Bob McDonald is the CBC’s science reporter and the author of two books based on the program, Wonderstruck I and Wonderstruck II. He is also the author of the memoir Measuring the Earth with a Stick: Science As I’ve Seen It.