Robert F. Shedinger


Robert Frederick Shedinger is an American Professor of Religion at Luther College (Iowa) and he was the Chair of the Department of Religion from 2008-2011.

Biography

Education

Shedinger received his B.S. in Civil Engineering Technology at Temple University in 1982. In 1994 he received his M.Div. at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. In 1998 Shedinger received his M.A. in Religious Studies at Temple University. From 2000, he holds his Ph.D from Temple University in Religious Studies, with his dissertation: Tatian and the Jewish Scriptures He also was Graduate Teaching Assistant while earning his Ph.D. in Religious Studies at Temple University.

Teaching

From 2000 to 2006, Shedinger served as Assistant Professor of Religion at Luther College. He was promoted to Associate Professor of Religion at Luther College from 2006 to 2014 and to Professor of Religion at Luther College in 2014.

Awards

Shedinger received the Award for Excellence in Biblical Studies conferred by the American Bible Society.

Views

His research interests revolve around the question “What is Religion?” which includes the Syriac versional tradition of the New Testament, theoretical approaches to the study of religion, Christian-Muslim relations in the contemporary world.
Shedinger initiated a hypothesis in which he proposes "that the theory of Tatianic dependence upon de OTP is tenuous at best", against Jan Joosten's reaction: "Tatianic use of the OT Peshitta has been stablished more strongly that before as a viable hypothesis." William Lawrence Petersen "enderses neither position", and according to Ulrich B. Schmid this debate has not generated a true consensus on the question of Tatianic use of the Old Testament Peshitta.
Shedinger has also been able to cite examples where the Shem Tob's Hebrew Gospel of Matthew coincides with many readings in the Greek Gospel of Matthew and those found only on ?45, thus supporting Howard's thesis that the Shem Tob's text was based on an ancient Hebrew text. Additionally he finds 67 other variants among ancient Greek texts "neither the Byzantine manuscript tradition nor the Vulgate and Latin tradition".

Works

Thesis

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Books

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Articles

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