“The devil made me do it!”: Moral agency in the light of demonic power

The Murdoch University Theology Program invites you to a series of lectures from this year’s Murdoch University International Theologian Professor Carol Newsom

In the ancient Near East demons were considered responsible for many kinds of natural evil (e.g., illness, sudden death). But in Second Temple Judaism the idea develops demons also cause some forms of human moral evil. What effects does this belief have on the understanding of responsible moral agency?

Professor Carol Newsom is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Old Testament and Director of the Graduate Division of Religion at the Candler School of Theology at Emory
University in Atlanta, USA.
She has a Masters in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a PhD from Harvard University. In addition, she has three honorary doctorates from Birmington-Southern College, Virginia Theological Seminary and the University of Copenhagen. Additionally,Professor Newsom was a President of the Society of Biblical Literature.
Professor Newsom has been a member of the international team of translators of the Dead Sea Scrolls since the mid 1980s and is working on a new book; Constructing the Moral Self: Moral Agency in Biblical and Early Jewish Thought.

RSVP is essential by emailing rsvp@murdoch.edu.au by Monday 6 October 2014