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  • Biographical Description

  • I am Professor of the history of Christianity and its scriptures. I received my M.Div. degree from Yale University and a Ph.D. in early Church history from Duke University. I have taught at the University of Denver since 1988. My published work includes Exploring the New Testament (Prentice Hall, 1986), Intrigue in the Garden: Genesis 1-3 in the History of Exegesis (Mellen, 1988), several entries in the Anchor Bible Dictionary, and articles in Studia Patristica. I received the Burlington Northern Foundation Award for Excellence in Teaching at the end of my second year at DU. I regularly teach courses on New Testament. I also teach courses on Christianity, early Christian classics (such as Augustine's Confessions and the Rule of St. Benedict) and the Christian canon of scripture. Film studies is also a passion, and I publish and frequently teach traditional religion and the modern world as reflected in film. A recent course is entitled "Jesus on the Silver Screen." In 2000, I was appointed to a three-year term as University Professor of Arts and Humanities, and taught courses and continue to do research related to the history of the interpretation of Genesis and religion and science and dialogue.

  • Contact Information

  • Gregory Allen Robbins Department of Religious Studies Sturm Hall 170 303.871.2751 E-mail: grobbins@du.edu
  • An Open Invitation

  • Why major in Religious Studies (short portfolio statement).docx

    Why major in Religious Studies?

    To major in religious studies is to engage liberal education at its best. Liberal education frees a learner from the tyranny of his or her own experiences and necessarily limited perspectives.

    Religion is a key ingredient in many of the puzzles we must solve if we are to
    understand our contemporary world. College students trying to negotiate the
    world in which we live could do no better than to broaden their knowledge of
    the world's religious traditions. If we are willing to grapple with them on the
    basis of a generous, disciplined study, we come away with a depth of
    historical, political and social understanding few are able to match.

    Most importantly, the study of religion invites us into a lifelong conversation with the great minds of the past and present. Together we spend our time, that most precious of commodities, pondering questions of what it means to be human, of what constitutes human flourishing. Figuratively, we ring the changes on what the 3rd-century Christian philosopher, Clement of Alexandria, called the queries of the true gnostic: “Who we were, what we have become, where we were, where we were placed, whither we hasten, from what we are set free, what birth is, what rebirth?”

    People who major in religious studies manage to find all sorts of jobs to support themselves – as our graduates certainly attest. A job notwithstanding, most find as well a vocation, a calling, as noble and ennobling as any one might pursue.

    Won't you join us?

This portfolio last updated: 12-Aug-2019 11:46 AM