Revd Canon Professor Richard Burridge

Biblical scholar, ethicist, theologian and social commentator

Richard is an internationally recognised biblical scholar, ethicist, theologian and social commentator, who has published over a dozen books and hundreds of other articles or publications. During his career, he has been a schoolmaster, parish priest, university chaplain, academic, and professor, and he served as Dean of King’s College London for over 25 years from 1993 to 2019.

Richard taught Classics initially, before undertaking research on Jesus and the gospels, for which work Pope Francis gave him the Ratzinger Prize in 2013. He is the only non-Catholic to be honoured in this way.

For more details of his work and publications, please visit his website.

Publications

Holy Communion in Contagious Times: Celebrating the Eucharist in the Everyday and Online Worlds (Wipf & Stock, 2022)
What are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (25th anniversary revised edition, Baylor University Press, 2018)
Four Gospels, One Jesus? A Symbolical Reading (SPCK Classics, 2013)
Four Ministries, One Jesus: Exploring Your Vocation with the Four Gospels (SPCK, 2017)
John: The People’s Bible Commentary (Bible Reading Fellowship, 2022)|
Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach to New Testament Ethics (Eerdmans, 2007)

Online lectures

Richard is available to deliver his lectures online, via Zoom or streaming. Please ask about this option when making your booking.

Lecture titles

Celebrating Communion in a Pandemic
This lecture considers how different churches have reacted to the Covid pandemic and explores all the various possible ways of celebrating communion during a time of potential infection, when people are hesitant about worshipping together and sharing bread and wine. In particular, Richard will contrast two online possibilities – the broadcast service on Facebook or YouTube, compared with a narrowcast webinar on Zoom or Teams.
New Testament Ethics Today
This lecture consists of two halves with the emphasis to be arranged to suit the local context:

a) What ethical material does the New Testament contain?

b) How is it used in contemporary ethical dilemmas?
Reading/Teaching the Gospels Today
Comparing the gospels to ancient biography, this lecture discusses the four portraits of Jesus in the canonical gospels and the implications of this approach for how we read them today.
What are the Gospels?
An account of how the gospels have been studied over the last century, including the major changes in gospel studies in the last decade or two in the light of their comparison with Graeco-Roman biography and its implications today.