Ancient Manuscripts Focus of Island Conference

(Photograph by Kay Smith)

East Bluff resident Reverend Ron Smith (right) and Dr. L. Michael White are preparing for the Friends of Herculaneum Society conference, which runs from Saturday, June 2 to Wednesday, June 6, at Grand Hotel. The conference is on ancient manuscripts discovered at Herculaneum, Italy. Dr. White holds the Ronald Nelson Smith Chair in Classics and Christian Origins and is Director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins of the University of Texas at Austin. He is a specialist on early Christianity and Judaism in the Roman world, authored "From Jesus to Christianity," and is Director of Excavations of the ancient synagogue at Ostia, Italy, the oldest Jewish synagogue in Europe.