2025 Conference at the University of Manchester

BNTS Meeting 2025 at the University of Manchester

Mon 1 Sept–Wed 3 Sept Aug 2025

Please note the days of this year’s conference.

Booking is now open: 2025 British New Testament Society Conference | University of Manchester

Venue: The conference will take place at University Place, Oxford Road, M13 9PL.

Lunch, dinner, and all papers will take place in this venue. Lifts are available in the venue.

Times: Conference starts with Registration from 3pm on Monday 1 September and ends with Lunch on Wednesday 3 September

Accommodation: Both single and ensuite are at Dalton-Ellis Hall, M14 5RL

(25 min walk, 14 min bus ride from University Place, regular buses)

Single Standard: Dalton-Ellis Ewings
Single Ensuite: Dalton-Ellis Sutherland

Residential Packages:
Standard single (shared bathroom): £300
Ensuite single: £320

*There are a limited number of Ensuite rooms, so book early to avoid disappointment*

Non-Residential Package: £235

Online Attendance: £60

You will need to choose your 1st and 2nd choice of seminar group when you register. Please note that the BNTS format is that you join one seminar group for the duration of the conference in order to enhance discussions and paper feedback.

In addition, you will be asked:
1) if you are willing for the organisers to share your name, institution, email address, seminar choice, and research interests with other delegates. This is so we can produce a list of delegates to enable you to find others working in the same area. We need your permission to share this information because of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR);
2) that you agree to the BNTS Code of Conduct, available here.

It is customary for a collection to be taken to support costs for postgraduate students and unwaged members. We will email details about how to donate to this soon. Further information about how to apply to this fund will be shared during the conference.

If you have questions about the conference or registration, please do not hesitate to contact Michelle Fletcher (secretary@bnts.org.uk).

2025 British New Testament Society Conference | University of Manchester

Plenary Papers

Helen Bond, University of Edinburgh, ‘Luke’s Rewriting of Matthews Birth Narrative’

Chair: Catrin Williams

This lecture argues that Luke’s birth narrative (Luke 1-2) was inspired by the ambiguity in Matthew’s account of Jesus’ conception, which left open the possibility that Jesus was illegitimate and was perhaps already inspiring the kind of slanders recounted by Celsus in his True Word. The author of Luke’s Gospel stressed Mary’s virginity through an angelic annunciation, replaced Matthew’s dubious or parochial stories with a set that better prepared for the Lukan Jesus, and developed a synkrisis with John the Baptist already in embryo form in Mark’s opening verses (Mark 1.7-8). The new opening, it will be argued, was added to a second edition of the gospel.

Panel: ‘Decolonising New Testament Studies’

Chair: Tom de Bruin

David Horrell, University of Exeter
Sofanit T. Abebe, Trinity College, Bristol
Olabisi Obamakin, Durham University
Gifford Rhamie, Newbold College
U-Wen Low, University of Birmingham

Benjamin Wold, Trinity College Dublin, ‘Debt, Hunger, and the Inversion of Forgiveness in the Matthean Lord’s Prayer in light of 4QInstruction’

Chair: Andrew Boakye

This paper explores the Matthean Lord’s Prayer as an ethical response to the material realities of debt and hunger in the ancient world. Rather than treating “daily bread” and “forgiveness of debts” through abstract, non-literal, or eschatological frameworks, it argues that these petitions reflect lived experiences of precarity and exposure. Special attention is given to the prayer’s inversion—“forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors”—which places human mercy at the center of divine response. Drawing on 4QInstruction, an early Jewish wisdom text, the paper situates the Lord’s Prayer within a sapiential tradition in which forgiveness and provision are formative acts of justice. Prayer here is not passive but performative: a communal ritual that disrupts cycles of obligation and models a divine economy of mercy. By reading these texts together, the paper shows how prayer becomes not merely petition but a communal practice of compassion, equity, and ethical formation.

Seminar Programmes

Ancient Judaism & Christianity

New Testament & Christian Theology

Paul

Reception, Critical Theory, and Interdisciplinary Studies

Synoptic Gospels

Short Papers