Prof. Paula Fredriksen lectures at Princeton University
The Spencer Trask Lectures at Princeton University were founded in 1881, and have featured scholars in a wide variety of areas, from Niels Bohr to Susan Sontag to Eric Hobsbaum to Alfred Kazin. In October 2007, PAULA FREDRIKSEN had a turn. Her three lectures on “Sin: The Early History of an Idea” provided an aerial survey of the vibrant vitality of the idea of sin in the first Christian centuries. For ancient Christians, 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. The lectures will be transformed into a book, to be published by Princeton University Press.