After a two year search, Eastern’s Christian Studies department finally has a new professor of New Testament.
Carl Mosser recently finished his doctoral studies at St. Andrews University in Scotland and will be graduating in June.
Mosser wrote his doctoral dissertation on Hebrews, arguing, in light of a cultural reading of Hebrews, that its destination was Jerusalem.
Mosser said he had thought quite a bit about Hebrews before doing his doctorate and was influenced by his wife to do his dissertation on Hebrews.
“One day she simply insisted that I do my Ph.D in New Testament and write my dissertation on Hebrews,” he said. “I duly submitted.”
Mosser began his studies at Life Bible College, now Life Pacific College, earning his undergraduate degree in biblical languages in 1995.
He then earned four master’s degrees in seven years: three at the Talbot School of Theology by 1998, and one from Fuller Theological Seminary in 2002.
Mosser said this accomplishment was not intentional.
“I decided to take courses that would be useful or beneficial, and they added up that way,” he said.
Mosser learned of the available New Testament position a year and a half ago from the website for the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities, of which Eastern is a member.
Mosser decided to apply for the position both because of Eastern’s hallmark commitment to faith, reason and justice, and because of the character of the Christian studies department
“They work to be conservative evangelical, but allow a diversity of opinion,” he said.
Mosser will begin teaching at Eastern in the fall. He will teach two sections of BIB 101, and a course on Judaism and the New Testament.
Mosser looks forward to coming to Eastern with his wife and three children, even though it will be, he said, a change from his native West Coast.
“To those of us from the West Coast [the East Coast] seems like a foreign country,” he said. “But I think we’ll acclimate.”