Jacob Thiessen, born in 1964, has been rector and lecturer at the University School of Theology STH Basel since January 2004 and professor of New Testament since 2007. He is also a leading elder of the Basel-Holee Mennonite congregation. Thiessen grew up in a Mennonite farming village in the Chaco of Paraguay. Before studying Protestant theology at STH Basel from 1989 to 1994, he spent two years teaching among the indigenous people in the Paraguayan Chaco. From 1995 to 1998, he worked part-time at STH Basel as a teaching assistant (New Testament and Greek). At the end of 1998, he was awarded ..read more

This issue of the European Journal of Theology opens with a contribution by Wolfgang Köhler, who shows how the theme of hardening the people’s hearts is important in the various parts of the Book of Isaiah. Tracing how the theme develops, Kohler uncovers a cycle of sin – hardening – judgement – repentance. Jacob Thiessen suggests that there is a connection between Paul’s Letter to the Romans and his speech in Miletus as recorded in Acts 20. In these contemporaneous texts Paul sets out ‘the whole counsel of God’. Thiessen also brings Isaiah into play when it comes to Paul’s sense of call. Chri ..read more

Opening a book by the Parisian theologian Henri Blocher is like being invited to a wedding banquet. It is a theologically and culturally rich, tasty and challenging experience. The publication of his latest book, La doctrine de l’Église et des sacrements, vol. 1 (Vaux-sur-Seine: Edifac, 2023), is a feast for theology, all the more so because this volume on ecclesiology was long awaited. (And we are still waiting for the second volume on the sacraments.) The book consists of two parts. In the first, Blocher expounds the biblical data, while in the second he analyses three types of ch ..read more

Read the Autumn 2023 Newsletter with more information about FEET activities, people, and forthcoming theological conferences ..read more

This issue of the European Journal of Theology contains two papers read at FEET’s online conference on Karl Barth. Romanian Octavian Baban offers a detailed and critical aassessment of Barth’s exegesis in the Römerbrief after 100 years. Baban argues that Barth discusses Paul’s concepts at the level of Paul’s corpus of letters and through a strong cultural lens, rather than at the level of Romans. Andrew McGowan focusses on the reception of Barth among evangelicals in Scotland. Although today Barth finds acceptance among a majority of evangelicals, McGowan notes critical differences on Scriptu ..read more

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See the attached PDF for first information about the forthcoming 2024 conference (Prague ..read more

During the Covid pandemic, our daughter lost her unborn son six months into her pregnancy. It was our first grandchild. Added to the pandemic, this trauma led me to a deep burnout from which it has been difficult to recover. Recently I had the challenge of leading students through a reflection on the missional relevance of the Book of Job, with the help of Tim Davy’s The Book of Job and the Mission of God. The book is well researched and based on Tim’s doctoral thesis written under Gordon McConville. The interpretative history of the Book of Job has well related unjust and unexplained sufferi ..read more

To register visit: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeymXG-sR5VBJEzZjM_I6B2_mMCYF6pit-hDCWWyd12XIcVKQ/viewform ..read more

The wretched conditions of Jerusalem evoked in Jeremiah 33 are similar to what is going on in Europe nowadays in several respects. When reading the description of the downfall of the city in verses 4 and 5, the ruins of Bakhmut in Ukraine immediately came to my mind. Even Jeremiah’s being in prison is not without parallels in our society. Jeremiah was incarcerated because his fellow-Israelites did not want to hear the word of God anymore. Is not this refusal akin to what many preachers are facing today? Amidst all misery, Jeremiah receives a message of hope. God assures him, among other thing ..read more