School Notes: Yale Divinity School
May/June 2018

Memphis panel event marks King anniversary

The Divinity School joined the national conversation on the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. by hosting a panel event on King’s legacy in Memphis, Tennessee—the site of his assassination 50 years ago this spring. Called “Living the Legacy Today,” the panel, held on March 12 before 550 people at Temple Israel in Memphis, included Divinity School assistant professor Eboni Marshall Turman, who said policy change must be accompanied by the “moral suasion” of which King often spoke. “It is going to take conversion to hear the truth,” Turman said. YDS dean Greg Sterling opened the event by noting, “It’s entirely fitting that a Christian divinity school partner with a Jewish shul in Memphis to remember the legacy of Martin Luther King. As people of faith, we must march in unison with our moral consciences to oppose the immorality of racism.” A video of the event is available on the YDS YouTube channel.

Coteaching with rare and primary sources benefits student learning

Bruce Gordon, Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History, and Joel Baden, professor of Hebrew Bible, used the Beinecke Library’s manuscript collection as the basis for their fall semester course on Jews, Christians, and Renaissance Bibles. The Divinity School professors began each class session, held in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, by having students examine a selection of primary texts laid out for them. Students then used the materials—papyri, the Gutenberg Bible, and more—to consider the relationship between Jewish and Christian theological interpretations and absorb what they had to teach about cultural change through the centuries. “This class could not happen any place else,” Gordon said. “No other place has this depth of resources.”