Susan Docherty --- The Smith Lecture, Autumn 2024 Reading the New Testament as a Jewish Text

Each semester, an outstanding female scholar from any sub-discipline of Divinity is invited to St Andrews to deliver the Smith Lecture in memory of Agnes Lewis and Margaret Dunlop (both née Smith), twin sisters from Ayrshire, whose contribution to Divinity led to the award of honorary doctorates in 1901 by the University.

A Smith Lecturer addresses a wide-ranging audience of undergraduates, postgraduates and staff and also meets informally with female students who might be interested in pursuing an academic career in the discipline.

Susan Docherty studied Theology at the University of Cambridge, gaining a BA, MA and MPhil there, before completing her PhD at the University of Manchester. She has taught at Newman University (Birmingham, UK) since 2000, and was appointed Reader in Biblical Studies in 2013 and then Professor of New Testament and Early Judaism in 2015. She specialises in early Jewish and early Christian biblical interpretation. She is the current convenor of the Annual Seminar on the Jewish Scriptures in Earliest Christianity and jointly guest edited a special edition (published in September 2015) of the Journal of New Testament Studies devoted to the re-use of Israel's Scriptures in the New Testament. In 2016 she was awarded the William Barclay Distinguished Research Fellowship in Biblical Studies at Trinity College, University of Glasgow, and in 2020 the Mary Ward Visiting Fellowship at Margaret Beaufort Institute Cambridge.

Following the lecture, women scholars will have the opportunity to meet Prof. Docherty in an adjacent venue for conversation not only about her lecture but around ways of encouraging and advancing women's careers in the academy.

This event is organised by the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion committee of the School of Divinity of the University of St Andrews.