Touching Death: Christian Perspectives on Anatomy Lab

Join us for a panel discussion exploring the theological dimensions of anatomy lab with Farr Curlin MD, palliative care physician and TMC Co-director, and J. Ross Wagner, PhD, Associate Professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School. The conversation will be moderated by UNC medical student and Triangle CMDA leader Hope Gehle. The panelists will consider such questions as:

What is the dead body in relation to the living body? What are you touching when you touch a dead body?  How in the New Testament are we to think about the relationship between the body with the soul & mind as marker of identity? What does it mean to affirm the resurrection of the body?  How does that relate to dissection?

Farr Curlin is Josiah C. Trent Professor of Medical Humanities at Duke Divinity School. A practicing palliative medicine physician, Farr works in both the School of Medicine’s Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine, and the Divinity School’s Initiative on Theology, Medicine, and Culture. He works with Duke colleagues to foster scholarship, study, and training regarding the intersections of medicine, ethics, and religion.

J. Ross Wagner returned to Duke in 2013 after teaching New Testament for fifteen years at Princeton Theological Seminary. Specializing in Paul’s letters and in Septuagint studies, he seeks to contribute to the recovery of theological exegesis through careful investigation of the ways scriptural interpretation shaped early Jewish and Christian communities. His publications include Heralds of the Good News: Paul and Isaiah in Concert in the Letter to the Romans (2002), Between Gospel and Election: Explorations in the Interpretation of Romans 9–11 (co-edited with Florian Wilk, 2010) and, most recently, Reading the Sealed Book: Old Greek Isaiah and the Problem of Septuagint Hermeneutics (2013). His current project, a book-length treatment of the Old Testament in the New, aims to show that theological reflection on the meaning of Jesus’ life has, from the very beginning, required Christian interpreters to wrestle with the textual and linguistic plurality of the scriptures in their witness to God’s actions in Jesus the Messiah.

Hope Gehle is a second-year medical student at UNC School of Medicine. She moved from metro-Atlanta to Anderson, SC with her family before becoming a Tar Heel to study biology and social and economic justice. She has been drawn to the TMC by her theological curiosity and desire to care for our bodies reverently. She is planning to pursue a career in pediatrics, hematology-oncology, and/or palliative care.

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