Call to Prayer & Action for Ukraine: See here for periodically updated information, prayers, liturgy, and action points.

Menu

The KLC Scripture Collective

The KLC Scripture Collective operates under the leadership of Rev Dr David Larsen, the Director of the Scripture Collective. It consists of four Seminars: the Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar (SAHS), the Scripture and Doctrine Seminar (SADS), the Scripture and Church Seminar (SACS), and the Scripture and the University Seminar (SAUS).

For any Scripture Collective queries please contact Dr David Larsen, the Scripture Collective Co-Director.

To register for the Scripture Collective Annual Meal 2023, scroll down. For more information on the Scripture Collective Seminars’ programmes at SBL / IBR in November 2023, head over to their respective pages: SAHS, SACS, SADS, SAUS.

Scripture Collective Annual Meal 2023

In-Person Event: Saturday 18 November 2023, 6:00PM CT, at Ruth’s Chris Steak House (Grand Hyatt Hotel)

Every year the Scripture Collective hosts its Annual Meal on the Saturday evening during SBL/AAR/IBR. 

It is one of the best things we do – a wonderful opportunity to connect and celebrate as a like-minded and collaborative community.

This year our Annual Meal will take place on Saturday 18 November 2023, from 6:00PM CT, at the excellent Ruth’s Chris Steak House, San Antonio River Walk (600 E Market Street – Grand Hyatt Hotel). 

The ticket cost is £20 per person and includes food and non-alcoholic beverages. Alcoholic beverages will be available, but will be at your own cost and not included in the £20 ticket.

Book your place to attend by following these two simple steps:

  1. Use the form below to RSVP and be added to our list of attendees.
  2. Once you have RSVP’d, please head over here to pay for your ticket. 

Scripture is the field in which is hid the pearl of great price, the Lord Christ. There is thus an immense amount at stake in our engagement with Scripture and in healthy biblical studies.

The KLCSC has its origins in the Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar (SAHS), established by Dr Bartholomew in 1998. It was conceived as an ambitious eight-year project to address key issues at the heart of a renewal of biblical interpretation that was rigorous and in the service of the Church. Since then SAHS has continued to meet each year at the Society of Biblical Literature in partnership with the Institute for Biblical Research. It has also given birth to three further seminars: the Scripture and Doctrine Seminar, the Scripture and Church Seminar (practical theology), and the Scripture and the University Seminar.

Each year in November KLC Scripture Collective organises a series of seminars and an Annual Meal held in North America in partnership with the Institute for Biblical Research at Society of Biblical Literature/American Academy of Religion.

The Ethos of our Seminars

1. The Seminars are academic

The Seminars recognise the fundamental importance of opening the Book of Scripture at all levels in our cultures, but the Seminars themselves are an academic initiative, embodying rigorous scholarship in the service of the church.

2. The Seminars are interdisciplinary

Meir Sternberg rightly notes that biblical studies is at the intersection of the humanities, and the Seminars are based on the understanding that at this intersection interdisciplinary insight is required if biblical studies is to be saved from some of its isolation and fragmentation, and for new ways forward to be forged. It has been a delight at our consultations to find philosophers rubbing shoulders with educationalists and theologians, and missiologists working with literary scholars to renew biblical interpretation.

3. The Seminars are Christian

Modernity has marginalised faith in the great public areas of culture, but this is a travesty of a Christian perspective in which faith relates to the whole of life. The one rule of the Seminar is that we are not free to keep our faith out of our reflections; on the contrary we want our faith to be at the heart of our work as Christian scholars.

4. The Seminars are ecumenical

Based out of the Kirby Laing Centre in Cambridge, the Scripture Collective is rooted deeply in the Evangelical faith. However, a range of Christian perspectives are represented within the Seminars. As the Seminar has developed the growing Catholic participation, for example, has been deeply enriching.

5. The Seminars are communal

The modern academy is deeply individualistic. However, we recognise that a renewal of biblical and theological interpretation will require communal work. And a great aspect of the Seminar is the emerging sense of community amongst participants.