Peter Widdicombe

Research & Supervisory Interests

My research interests lie in Patristics, the history of doctrine, systematic theology, and artistic representation. I publish on Trinitarian and Christological thought, and scriptural interpretation, in the early church; and on the history of the reception of biblical texts and their artistic representation from the Patristic period through the Reformation. Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Athanasius, and Augustine are among the principal Patristic authors I study; Barth and others writing on the doctrines of the Trinity and of Christ are among the principal modern authors. I am particularly interested in how the church has used Scripture and philosophy in the development of these doctrines, and how these doctrines are expressed in the context of modern and post-modern thought. I also have an interest in Christian ethics. Presently, I am writing a book on the interpretation of the Drunkenness of Noah in text and art from the early Church through the Reformation. In it, I examine the development of the allegorical approach to the interpretation of Scripture in the Patristic period, the application of that approach in the Middle Ages, and its abandonment at the Reformation. I also look at the way in which the changes in the reading of the Drunkenness affected the way in which the incident was portrayed in paintings, sculpture, and manuscript illustrations.  For most of the writers of the Western Christian tradition until the Reformation, Noah in his drunkenness represented Christ in his passion. At the Reformation, Noah in his drunkenness came to represent humanity in its sinful. Christological reading of the Bible had given way to anthropological reading.

Courses Taught

Undergraduate

1BO6: World Religions - Judaism, Christianity, Islam
2HH3: Paul and Christian Origins
2II3: Christianity in the Patristic Period
2JJ3: Christianity in the Mediaeval Period
2KK3: Christianity in the Reformation Period
3KK3: Christianity in the Modern Period
3BO3: Christ Through the Centuries

Graduate

RS 789/707: The Christological Controversies of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries
RS 783: The Place of the Holy Spirit in the History of Christian Thought
RS 789/707: The Writings of Athanasius
RS 789: Augustine’s De Trinitate
RS 783: Christ in Modern Christian Thought
RS 702/783: The Historical-Critical Method and the Study of Sacred Scripture (with Steve Westerholm)
RS 789: The Writings of Origen
RS 764: The Early Christian Interpretation of Scripture
RS 795: Trinitarian Conceptions of God
RS 764: History of Interpretation: The Gospel of John (with Steve Westerholm)
RS 763: The Invisible and the Visible: Scripture, Doctrine, and Art in the Patristic Period
RS: 764: The Psalms in Patristic Interpretation
RS 763: The Reading of Scripture: Genesis in the Eyes of Augustine and Chrysostom

Recent Publications

“A Trinity of Delights: Proverbs 8:30-31 and its Theological Interpretation in Patristic Thought,” Theoforum 42: 119-33, 2011.

“Origen”, The Blackwell Companion to Paul, ed. Steven Westerholm (Oxford: Wilely-Blackwell), pp. 316-29, 2010.

"The Drunkenness of Noah and the Patristic Legacy," Studia Patristica XLIV (2010) 9-13.

"The Two Thieves of Luke 23:32-43 in Patristic Exegesis", Studia Patristica XII (2006) 273-80.

"The Wounds and the Glorified Body:  The Marks of Crucifixion in the Ascended Christ from Justin Martyr to John Calvin", Laval Theologique at Philosophique 59 (2003) 137-54.

The Fatherhood of God from Origen to Athanasius.  Oxford:  The Clarendon Press, revised edition, 2000.

“The Gospels of Mark and Matthew in Patristic Interpretation,” Mark and Matthew. Texts and Contexts, ed. Eve-Marie Becker and Anders Runesson. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming.

“The Fatherhood of God in the Writings of Ireneaus,” Irenaeus of Lyons and his Traditions, ed., Paul Foster and Sara Parvis. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, forthcoming.

“Noah and Foxes: Song of Songs 2:15 and the Patristic Legacy in Text and Art”, Studia Patristica, forthcoming.

Drunkenness, Nakedness, and the Redemption and Fall of an Image: Noah and Christ. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company (under contract.)