Dr. Richard Wright, professor of New Testament in the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University, will present a free lecture on the use of new technological tools in biblical scholarship.

Theme is “Decoding Sacred Scripts: The Frankfurt Amulet, The Bible, and Technology.” The lecture is hosted by ACU’s Center for the Study of Ancient Religious Texts (CSART).

The lecture is set for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 25, in Room 130 of ACU’sheBiblical Studies Building. It will also be streamed. CLICK HERE to register for the Zoom webinar. A time for questions and discussion will follow. 

Wright, an accomplished musician, has published numerous articles on the social world of the New Testament. His recent publications include, A Reader in Biblical Greek (Eerdmans, 2022) and Ethics in Contexts (ed. with J.W. Thompson; Eugene, OR, 2019). 

The following is a news release about the lecture from ACU:

“In December 2024, using MRI technology, scholars finally had access to the written contents of a silver amulet that had been discovered in 2018 in a cemetery just outside Frankfurt Germany. The text, written in Latin, contains a quotation from Paul’s letter to the Philippians and other biblical language. The artIfact is one of our earliest pieces of evidence for Christianity in Roman Germany and raises interesting questions about the use of Scripture in the fourth century of the Common Era. That access to this previously inaccessible text was made possible by means of technological tools illustrates how modern science is providing scholars access to texts that open new windows to the ancient world.”