The 30th Annual Spiritual Life Institute

The Dead Sea Scrolls: History, Religion, and Scripture

June 25-29, 2012

Faculty members

Mladen Popovic, Ph.D. - Faculty of theology and religious studies, University of Groningen, Netherlands

MLADEN POPOVIC studied at the University of Groningen, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, and Yale University. He conducted archeological research in Megiddo and Jerusalem. Since 2007, he has been deputy head of the Qumran Institute of the University of Groningen, which has a leading role within the Netherlands in the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 2008, Popovic was awarded the Keetje Hodshon Prize of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities for his PhD thesis. In late 2009, he was awarded a Veni grant, which are intended for young researchers who have recently gained a Ph.D. and have significant and original talent for innovative research.

Hanne von Weissenberg, Ph.D. - Research fellow, University of Helsinki, Finland

HANNE VON WEISSENBERG earned a PhD from the University of Helsinki in 2006 where she has been a senior lecturer and a research fellow. In 2006-2007, she worked as a visiting research fellow at the University of Manchester, UK. Her doctoral dissertation - "4QMMT - The Problem of the Epilogue" - was published in 2009, and her current writing project deals with the process of canon formation in light of the witness of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 2010-2011, she was a member of the Young Scientists program at the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters and she was recently awarded a three-year appointment as a research fellow in the prestigious Helsinki Collegium of Advanced Studies. In addition to her academic responsibilities, von Weissenberg is an ordained minister in the church of Finland.

Ian Werrett, Ph.D. - associate professor of religious studies, Saint Martin's University

IAN WERRETT is the director of the Spiritual Life Institute at Saint Martin’s University. A specialist on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ancient Judaism, Werrett has given numerous lectures and presentations in Europe, Canada, Israel, and the United States. He has worked in situ on the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jerusalem and as a member of the Pacific Science Center's Speakers Bureau in Seattle, Washington. Werrett earned a M.A. in Biblical Studies from Trinity Western University in 2000 and a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies and Second Temple Judaism from the University of St. Andrews in 2006. He has published numerous articles and book reviews and is the author of a monograph entitled Ritual Purity and the Dead Sea Scrolls.