Book Launch: Mighty in Word and Deed

This session forms part of the SBL International Meeting 2026 in Adelaide but is also open to guests not registered for the conference. Notice of attendance required for non-registered guests. RSVP to alc@alc.edu.au (by 29 June) Reception on location to follow.

This event will mark the publication of Stephen Hultgren’s major, two-volume study of the formation of the New Testament gospels from a social memory perspective. Entitled Mighty in Word and Deed and published in 2025 by De Gruyter in its BZNW series, the work offers a new and different approach to the formation of the gospels. Social memory takes account of both the individual and the community in the formation of the gospels by considering social frameworks and socially significant narrative patterns that individuals use to remember and recount the past. Part 1 reviews the history of scholarship on the formation of the gospel genre and develops a suitable approach, while parts 2 and 3 offer textual studies illustrating factors that contributed to the construction of a gospel as an extended narrative, inclusive of Jesus’s words and deeds. The work demonstrates how extended gospel narrative functioned to integrate memories of Jesus into different frameworks of Christological interpretation, and why such an extended narrative was essential to early Christian memory of Jesus.

After an introduction to the work and a critical response, participants will be invited to engage with questions and discussion. A reception will close the session. Stay for a drink and conversation.

Author:

Reverend Associate Professor Stephen Hultgren (Australian Lutheran College/University of Divinity)

Panelists:

Reverend Professor Bart Bruehler (Uniting College for Leadership and Theology/ University of Divinity);

Reverend Associate Professor Robyn Whitaker (Pilgrim Theological College/ University of Divinity)

SBL IM session code: Session 7-72