Dr Sam Gibson, Dr Matthew Steinfeld and Dr Michael Clark formally received their Doctorates from the University of Birmingham yesterday.
Dr Sam Gibson received his doctorate from the Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Head of the College of Arts and Law, Professor Michael Whitby, at a graduation ceremony in the Great Hall of the Aston Webb Building yesterday afternoon. His thesis, The liturgical and textual tradition of Acts and Paul in the Byzantine apostolos lectionary, undertaken in ITSEE, was supervised by Professor David Parker and supported by the AHRC. It concerns a corpus of manuscripts containing New Testament and liturgical material and uses digital methods plus detailed observation of the contents of the manuscripts to explore groupings within this corpus as well as setting it in its monastic, liturgical and theological context. His thesis is available from the University of Birmingham's eTheses Repository. Sam is now studying for an Masters in Applied Theology at St Stephen's House in Oxford.
Also graduating in absentia were Dr Michael Clark and Dr Matthew Steinfeld. Their theses are also available from the University of Birmingham eTheses repository.
Michael's thesis on The Catena of Nicetas of Heraclea and its Johannine text was supervised in ITSEE by Professor David Parker. It examines the relationships between the manuscripts of the catena and includes a reconstruction of Nicetas's text of John. Michael has recently taken up a teaching post in Florida.
Matthew's thesis on The text of Romans, second Corinthians, and Galatians in the writings of Origen of Alexandria was supervised by Dr Hugh Houghton and examines whether Origen's citations of the these Pauline letters, as they are found today, transmit the text quoted by the author and whether they may reflect the text of the biblical manuscripts he used. Matthew will become an Assistant Professor of Theology at the LLC International University in Lithuania this autumn.