Sunday, November 25th, 10:00am

Do you yearn to learn answers to your questions and dispel the myths from the Da Vinci Code book and movie? The Lost Gospels, the first in a series of free lectures given by Dr. William Baird will address your questions. Why do we have just four Gospels when there were fragments and knowledge of as many as sixty gospels? How did our New Testament come to us and how did the church decide the books chosen were authentic? 

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Sunday, November 25th & Monday, November 26th, 7:00pm

Lectures will trace the shift of the center of biblical studies from Germany to America in the second half of the twentieth century. Dr. Baird will examine the rise of liberal and conservative approaches to understanding the Bible and the more recent shift to fundamentalism and how it affects the church today.

• Sunday -- I -- Harvard (Henry Cadbury) & Yale (Paul Minear)
  
  
• Monday -- II -- Princeton (J.G. Machen) and Chicago (E.J. Goodspeed)

Monday, November 26, 10:00am
Great for Clergy, Professors, Students

Dr. Baird will lecture and answer questions on the research and writing of his two published books (and soon to be a third) on the New Testament. He will cover problems, sources, methods, and procedures of writing the books. Dr. Baird’s lecture will include such topics as:

• Research,, writing and the use of the computer and Internet
  
  
• The “plot” - the application in the Enlightment of scientific method to all disciplines, including the Bible
  
  
• The problem of a New Testament scholar shifting to a historical survey in a modern world
  
  
• The emergence of a principle: “to read the Bible like any other ancient book.”
  
  
• Agreement on method; divergence in results
  
  
• What makes a scholar great? F. C. Baur and Rudolf Bultmann
  
  
• Has the historical-critical method come to an end?

A California native and author of six books, Dr. William Baird is an Emeritus Professor of the New Testament at Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University in Ft. Worth, Texas. A graduate of Northwest Christian College and the University of Oregon respectively, Dr. Baird obtained his Ph.D. from Yale in 1955. Additional professional studies include the School of Theology at Claremont, the University of Chicago - where he was a senior fellow in the Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion; and international studies at the Universities of Marburg and Heidelberg in Germany. Dr. Baird has taught in Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) seminaries for over 40 years and received the Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at TCU and received the Distinguished Minister Award from Brite Alumni in 2003. Memberships include: Phi Beta Kappa, Society of Biblical Literature, Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, and the Association of Disciples for Theological Discussion. Dr. Baird is currently working on the third volume of his major work: History of New Testament Research, to be published, as were the first two volumes, by Fortress Press.

Books will be available at all lectures and Dr. Baird will be available for signing.