Sara Parks PhD

16/12/2025

I was awarded tenure and promotion to Associate Professor this week. What a journey.

https://www.facebook.com/100054612272425/posts/1392040489293014/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

28/10/2025

! Up my alley...

To expand thinking around performance and apocalypse, my project incorporates a consideration of gender to these categories. So, in this project, I am concerned with answering the question “is there such a thing as apocalyptic masculinity?”

11/10/2025

Congrats, Francis, on your timely Torah dot com piece!

https://www.facebook.com/share/1BmXjmP6t3/

Written by a Jew in the 2nd century B.C.E., The Letter of Aristeas tells how Demetrius of Phalerum advised King Ptolemy II (3rd cent. B.C.E.) that the Library of Alexandria should commission a Greek translation of the otherwise inaccessible Jewish Torah. At the king’s request, Eleazar, the High Pr...

15/09/2025

All are welcome to join us for the season launch of the 2025-2026 Study of Religion Lunch Lecture Series at Saint Mary's University Halifax.

"Gender in the Rhetoric of Jesus"
📅 September 19, noon to 1 pm
📍 McNally Main, room 227

Our guest speaker Dr. Sara Parks teaches at Stfx Religious Studies and is co-author of the award-winning textbook, "Jewish and Christian Women in the Ancient Mediterranean" (Routledge, 2022). Dr. Parks is a Canadian religious studies scholar, specializing in ancient Mediterranean constructions of gender, especially in the literature of Second-Temple Judaism and early Christianity.

She explores where opportunities arose for women as a result of shifting and competing expressions of Judaism. Her book "Gender in the Rhetoric of Jesus" describes a unique pedagogical device in the earliest layer of sayings material attributed to Jesus: the "gender pairs." She speculates on what this tendency towards male-female teaching examples (i.e., attentiveness to women community members) might tell us about women in the Galilean Jewish community that collected Jesus' sayings before there were written gospels.

Lunch will be provided. https://loom.ly/qaQoKQw

15/09/2025

SCIBS research seminar schedule's out!

Sheffield Centre for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies Research Seminar Schedule 2025-26 Unless otherwise noted, seminars take place online on Mondays from 2–3:30pm. Please email [email protected] for the link to join. To view abstracts, click on the title of each paper. Semester 1...

09/07/2025

Do you like Pomodoro timers? Today's workflow is "Dark Academia" by "ADHD Couple"

I hope this video helps you with your tasks. You've got this! ₊˚⊹♡▶ 𝗔𝗗𝗛𝗗 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐒: https://www.etsy.com/shop/IngriDesigns▶ 𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗠: ...

01/06/2025

Friends in a higher ed context, I'm looking to hear about your CONVOCATION CEREMONIES. Do they have a spiritual, religious, multifaith, and/or multicultural component?

If so, what form does that take?

If your institution is affiliated with (or was founded by) a particular faith tradition, does the graduation ceremony incorporate that tradition?

Just doing an informal scan to see what other (especially other Canadian or Commonwealth) undergrad universities do.

28/05/2025

"Judeophobia and the New Testament" (edited by Eric Vanden Eykel, Meredith Warren, and Sarah Rollens, Eerdmans 2025) is the subject of the latest "Biblical Time Machine" Podcast episode. Have a listen to Dr Warren on why this new resource (which I'm mighty proud to have contributed to) is important for academy and parish alike.

Cyrus II was the founder of the Persian Empire, arguably the greatest empire of the Ancient Near East. Cyrus wasn't only a hero to the Persians. In the Hebrew Bible, Cyrus is the only non-Jew that God calls His "anointed one" or "messiah." But does Cyrus really deserve his reputa

23/05/2025

Hey, James McGrath! Did you see this detailed and thoughtful review of your work on the Amateur Exegete blog?

James F. McGrath. The A to Z of the New Testament: Things Experts Know That Everyone Else Should Too. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2023. Pp. vii + 304. Paperback. $21.99. ISBN 9780802882…

19/05/2025

ICYMI, Arden De LeeBeeck (BA Religious Studies '25) is the winner of the 2025 Dr. Annette Ahern Memorial Essay Prize in Religious Studies, for excellence in their research presentation in Buddhist Studies, titled, "Nirvana in the Force" for Dr. Gerjan Altenburg. Congratulations, Arden. Well done!