News Releases
News from Lane Community College
For release April 5, 2011
Stephen Shoemaker lectures at LCC April 7
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Stephen Shoemaker |
EUGENE, OR - Stephen Shoemaker lectures at Lane Community College on Thursday, April 7, at 5:30 p.m. in the Center for Meeting and Learning, Room 104. His address is titled, "Reading the Qur'an with Albert Schweitzer; or Jesus, Muhammad, and the End of the World."
Shoemaker has a doctorate from Duke University and teaches about Christian traditions. His primary interests are ancient and early medieval Christian traditions, especially early Byzantine and Near Eastern Christianity. His research focuses on early devotion to the Virgin Mary, Christian apocryphal literature, and the relations between Near Eastern Christianity and formative Islam. He is author of "The Death of a Prophet: The End of Muhammad's Life and the Beginnings of Islam." He has published numerous studies on early Christian traditions, articles on the earliest "Life of the Virgin" English translation of the first Marian biography from Old Georgian. Currently he is preparing a new critical edition of the early Syriac Dormition narratives.
Shoemaker says that for much of the past century, scholarship on the beginnings of Islam, particularly in English, has portrayed Muhammad primarily as a prophet of social justice and economic reform, often to the effect of marginalizing the powerful eschatological voice of the Qur'an. While many of the earliest Western scholars of Islamic origins saw the impending judgment of the hour as the heart of Muhammad’s religious message, more recent scholarship favors an understanding of Muhammad as interested more in reforming the world than heralding its imminent destruction. While this image of Muhammad may fit with later traditions of the early Islamic biographies of Muhammad, it does not do justice to the forceful eschatological message of the Qur'an, says Shoemaker.
His lecture is the second in the Visiting Scholars on Islam series developed by Lane in collaboration with the University of Oregon. The series is free and open to the community.
For disability accommodations, contact Disability Resources at (541) 463-5150 or (541) 463-3079 (TTY). Lane is an equal opportunity/affirmative action institution.
Visit Lane Community College online at 2011sitearchive.lanecc.edu or www.twitter.com/lanenews or www.facebook.com/lanecommunitycollege
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Media contact: Joan Aschim, PIO, (541) 463-5591, aschimj@lanecc.edu
