Brigitte Kahl

Brigitte Kahl is a Professor of New Testament at Union Theological Seminary in New York and an Associate Professor at the Religion Department of Columbia University. A biblical scholar with strong inter-disciplinary and ecological leanings, she explores scriptural texts and topics in their ancient contexts and interpretational trajectories throughout history, analyzing both “mainline” and “heretic” reading paradigms in their impact on church, society and natural environment. As the canonical book of Christianity and Western civilization, the Bible has been a key player in countless socio-religious, philosophical and scientific clashes past and present, often we devastating effects. Can it be re-read as the book of humanity and interdependent survival on a fragile planet?

Dr. Kahl graduated from Humboldt University in (East) Berlin after studies in Theology and English and with two doctorates in New Testament and Ecumenics (1983/86). She taught Ecumenical Bible Interpretation from 1982-97 at Humboldt and served as a Professor of Biblical Exegesis and Theology at Paderborn University. She has published several books and numerous articles and lectured widely in Europe and the US. A major focus of her recent work has been the relationship between New Testament and Roman Empire, especially with regard to the letters of Paul. In her book Galatians Re-Imagined: Reading with the Eyes of the Vanquished (2010) she introduces a method of visual exegesis and Critical Re-Imagination that uses ancient art and architecture (most notably the Great Altar of Pergamon) to re-conceptualize the role of the Other in Pauline and Early Christian constructs of identity, religion, power and gender.