Princeton University Podcasts

Jesus of Nazareth announced that God was about to redeem the world. Some 450 years later, the church taught that the far greater part of humanity was eternally condemned. The early community began by preserving the memory and the message of Jesus; within decades of his death, some Christians asserted that Jesus had never had a fleshly human body at all. The church that insisted that Jewish scriptures were Christian scriptures also insisted that the god who said "Be fruitful and multiply" actually meant, "Be sexually continent." Some four centuries after Paul's death, his conviction that "All Israel will be saved" served to support the Christian conviction that the Jews were damned. What accounts for the great variety of these and other ancient Christian teachings? The short answer is the following: dramatic mutations in ancient Christian ideas about sin. In the gospels, sin's remedy is repentance, immersions, prayer, and sacrifice—we are still in the world of Late Second Temple Judaism. In Augustine's writings, only God is sin's remedy. People can repent, but God alone decides whose repentance to accept. And between these two extremes we see "sin" invoked as a way to account for an astounding range of things, from the physical structure of the universe to the grammatical structure of a sentence. These three lectures provide an aerial survey of the vibrant vitality of the idea of sin in the first Christian centuries. Come see how an impulsive bite of fruit came to explain absolutely everything else, from the death of God's son to the power politics of the empire that eventually worshiped him. A Spencer Trask Lecture, cosponsored by Princeton University Press.

Jesus of Nazareth announced that God was about to redeem the world. Some 450 years later, the church taught that the far greater part of humanity was eternally condemned. The early community began by preserving the memory and the message of Jesus; within decades of his death, some Christians asserted that Jesus had never had a fleshly human body at all. The church that insisted that Jewish scriptures were Christian scriptures also insisted that the god who said "Be fruitful and multiply" actually meant, "Be sexually continent." Some four centuries after Paul's death, his conviction that "All Israel will be saved" served to support the Christian conviction that the Jews were damned. What accounts for the great variety of these and other ancient Christian teachings? The short answer is the following: dramatic mutations in ancient Christian ideas about sin. In the gospels, sin's remedy is repentance, immersions, prayer, and sacrifice—we are still in the world of Late Second Temple Judaism. In Augustine's writings, only God is sin's remedy. People can repent, but God alone decides whose repentance to accept. And between these two extremes we see "sin" invoked as a way to account for an astounding range of things, from the physical structure of the universe to the grammatical structure of a sentence. These three lectures provide an aerial survey of the vibrant vitality of the idea of sin in the first Christian centuries. Come see how an impulsive bite of fruit came to explain absolutely everything else, from the death of God's son to the power politics of the empire that eventually worshiped him. A Spencer Trask Lecture, cosponsored by Princeton University Press.

Jesus of Nazareth announced that God was about to redeem the world. Some 450 years later, the church taught that the far greater part of humanity was eternally condemned. The early community began by preserving the memory and the message of Jesus; within decades of his death, some Christians asserted that Jesus had never had a fleshly human body at all. The church that insisted that Jewish scriptures were Christian scriptures also insisted that the god who said "Be fruitful and multiply" actually meant, "Be sexually continent." Some four centuries after Paul's death, his conviction that "All Israel will be saved" served to support the Christian conviction that the Jews were damned. What accounts for the great variety of these and other ancient Christian teachings? The short answer is the following: dramatic mutations in ancient Christian ideas about sin. In the gospels, sin's remedy is repentance, immersions, prayer, and sacrifice—we are still in the world of Late Second Temple Judaism. In Augustine's writings, only God is sin's remedy. People can repent, but God alone decides whose repentance to accept. And between these two extremes we see "sin" invoked as a way to account for an astounding range of things, from the physical structure of the universe to the grammatical structure of a sentence. These three lectures provide an aerial survey of the vibrant vitality of the idea of sin in the first Christian centuries. Come see how an impulsive bite of fruit came to explain absolutely everything else, from the death of God's son to the power politics of the empire that eventually worshiped him. A Spencer Trask Lecture, cosponsored by Princeton University Press.

The University marked the opening of Whitman College with a public lecture by design architect Demetri Porphyrios Wednesday, Sept. 26. Constructed to complement the Collegiate Gothic style of dormitories on the west end of campus, Whitman is the University's sixth residential college, but the first to be built as a single project. Its completion launches Princeton's four-year residential college system.

Princeton University's 260th Commencement

The ceremony is presided over by President Shirley M. Tilghman and Dean William B. Russel.

Featuring Emmy Award-winning actor Bradley Whitford

Featuring Princeton faculty member John Fleming

Robert N. Grant '67 P02 P07 and Francis J. Mirabello '75 P07, Fellows of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel discuss achieving personal and financial goals through estate planning, and Vice President and Treasurer Christopher McCrudden P93 discusses the investment strategies and performance of planned gifts managed by Princeton.

Prayer has been practiced in all religious traditions and is today a topic of much interest. Yet prayer is poorly understood. Conceived as a private act, its social and cultural dimensions are particularly neglected. Regarded as a tool for health and happiness, prayer is also shaped increasingly by popular writers, the media, and even by scholars claiming to study it scientifically. This symposium brings together a panel of scholars and practitioners to discuss the historical, cultural, social, and religious aspects of prayer and to consider its changing meanings and implications. Featuring Sister Mary Margaret Funk, Our Lady of Grace Monastery; David D. Hall, Harvard Divinity School; Carol Zaleski, Smith College; and Albert Raboteau, Princeton University. Held by the Cognition and Religion Initiative of the Princeton University Center for the Study of Religion.