How Religion Matters in an Age of Extinction

Kaplan 365

In person (Kaplan 365) or on Zoom Could knowledge about biodiversity loss be advanced through inquiry into the study of religion? Emerging from a lab that integrates humanities, arts, and...

Who Really Wrote the Bible: The Story of the Scribes

314 Royce Hall

Who wrote the Bible? Its books have no bylines. Tradition long identified Moses as the author of the Pentateuch, with Ezra as editor. Ancient readers also suggested that David wrote...

POSTPONED: And God Laughed: Humor in the Bible

Online on Zoom

In light of the current circumstances confronting the Los Angeles region, UCLA is currently operating on remote status through Friday, January 17th. As a result, the Leve Center has postponed...

The Great Search with John Philip Newell

314 Royce Hall/Zoom

The story of Adam and Eve’s fall from innocence in the Garden of Eden is a mythical account of humanity’s broken relationship with the divine, with Earth, and with themselves. In contrast, Celtic wisdom is built on a strong bond with Earth. In the prophetic figures that author John Philip Newell draws from in his...

Progressive Activists and the Bible

Online on Zoom

Some of America's most effective reformers did not just refer to the Bible, but fused their own struggles with its narratives, seeing themselves as part of a cosmic divine battle within history. Claudia Setzer will have us consider how abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Civil Rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer and others used multiple methods of biblical...

Spread and Stack: The Development of the Roman Catholic Church from 33-461

Kaplan 365

In this talk by Gabriel Rossman, he attempts to explain the development of Christianity over its first six centuries from a highly localized charismatic sect to a hierarchical structure spanning much of the world. Rossman conceives of the formation of the Catholic Church as an illustrative case of large social structures forming in three overlapping...