Led by Dr. T. Scott Caulley, The Institute has a very productive relationship with the prestigious and influential University of Tübingen. The Institute pursues basic New Testament research, offers colloquia throughout the academic year, and engages in continuing dialogue with professors and students from Germany, greater Europe, and around the world. A primary function of The Institute is to bear effective witness to the authority and claims of Christ and His Gospel.
English Vesper Service
The English Vesper Service is more of an international service than English. Of course, the service itself is still held in English (with a variety of accents), and the gathering on any given night usually includes at least four or five Americans and Britons. But those attending represent not only the English-speaking world but a great diversity of lands and cultures: China, Japan, Madagascar, Togo, Brazil, Korea, Turkey among them. The foyer after the services resembles Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, as people chat not only in German and English, but in Japanese, Portuguese, French, or Chinese. The service has been adapted for different levels of competence in English: a printed program with the Lord’s Prayer in English is often a part of the service.
For those who take religious freedom for granted, contact with non-Western Christians is a needed reminder that social alienation and persecution of believers is not limited to the pages of the New Testament – they are a present reality.
The influence of the ministry of the English Vesper Services is difficult to measure, but surely Christians all over the world have been blessed by this ministry and the influence it had on believers while they were in Tübingen.
Colloquium
During the University semesters, the Institute offers the fortnightly "Kolloquium für Graduierte" (Graduate Colloquium) in conjunction with the Protestant Faculty of Theology at the University. This colloquium offers PhD students and visiting professors the opportunity to present portions of their dissertations or other "work in progress" for critique by their peers. Recent participants have been doctoral students and visiting professors from the US, UK, Finland, Korea, Japan, and Germany.
Topics of recent presentations have included: beatitudes in the Dead Sea Scrolls; the use of tradition material in 2 Peter; the Similitudes of Enoch; "righteousness" in the Sermon on the Mount; rhetorical devices in the Gospel of Luke; angelology in the Dead Sea Scrolls; a comparison of vice and virture in in Matthew and Philo; conceptions of women in 4QInstruction; intertextuality in manuscripts of Luke's Emmaus pericope; History of Religions backgrounds for the Adam-Christ antithesis in Romans 5. Please click here for the current schedule of topics.
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