Faculty research in the Holy Land

Fr Pino Di Luccio, S.J.

Director of the Jerusalem campus; Extraordinary Professor in the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical Gregorian University.

His research studies the formation of traditions in the founding texts of the monotheistic religions, and the relevance of these traditions for the interpretation of the identity of religious groups, of the history of ancient and modern buildings, and of the culture and ideology of the societies of the Mediterranean basin.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0275-858X

Books

• I Giudei alla festa delle Capanne. Antisemitismo in Gv 7-10?, Lectio 22, San Paolo, Cinisello Balsamo MI 2026, pp. 302.
• Glorificazione. Passione e risurrezione di Gesù, EDB, Bologna 2025, pp. 325.
• Le tradizioni evangeliche dell’ultima cena. Alle origini della teologia del battesimo e dell’eucaristia, EDB, Bologna 2023, pp. 163.
• Il Vangelo secondo Giovanni tra liturgia ebraica e interpretazione biblica. Esempi di esegesi contestuale, San Paolo, Cinisello Balsamo MI 2023, pp. 234.
• Il cuore di Gesù nelle parole dei salmi. Un itinerario di preghiera, Apostolato della Preghiera, Roma 2023, pp. 168.
• Fraternità resiliente. Attualizzazioni della teologia giovannea nel contesto del Mediterraneo, Il Pozzo di Giacobbe, Trapani 2022, pp. 195.
• Il Padre dei piccoli e la pace del suo Regno. Sette studi sul “Padre nostro” con un lessico di termini ebraici ed aramaici, Editoriale Scientifica, Napoli 2021, pp. 152.
• Discernere il cambiamento. Il cambio di prospettiva nella Bibbia, Adp, Roma 2021, pp. 168.
• La parola di Dio e il tempo della salvezza. Il Vangelo secondo Giovanni e il suo contesto, GBPress-San Paolo, Roma-Cinisello Balsamo MI 2021, pp. 180.
• La Gioia della Verità, Il Pozzo di Giacobbe, Trapani 2019, pp. 112 (edd. con C. Manunza).
• Il futuro come mosaico. Saggi sul Tempio di Gerusalemme e sul sacerdozio di Gesù, Il Pozzo di Giacobbe, Trapani 2016, pp. 234.
• The Quelle and the Targums. Righteousness in the Sermon on the Mount/Plain, AnalBib 175, Pontificio Istituto Biblico, Roma 2009, pp. 324.

Articles

• "Waiting for Peace in Prayers of Jews and Christians as an Example of Definition of Identity", Estudios Eclesiásticos 94/369 (2019) 265-294 https://doi.org/10.14422/ee.v94.i369.y2019.002
• "Praying for the Coming of the Kingdom. Crystallizing Biblical Themes in Second Temple Prayers", Religions 16/8 (2025) 969 (1-16) https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16080969

Fr Josef Mario Briffa, S.J.

Director of the Biblicum student programmes and Director of the Museum; Extraordinary Professor in the Biblical Faculty of the Pontifical Gregorian University (Pontifical Biblical Institute).

An archaeologist (PhD, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 2017), he works on the figurines of the Iron Age southern Levant, on the legacy of the Pontifical Biblical Institute’s excavations at Teleilat Ghassul and on the history of archaeology in the region. Since 2013 he has excavated with the Lautenschläger Expedition to Azekah, and in 2022 he co-directed the excavations at Deir Tantur. He has been curator of the Institute’s museum in Jerusalem since 2018 and teaches the archaeology and historical geography of the Bible.

Books

• Ignatius in the Holy Land. A Guided Pilgrimage, Messenger Publications, Dublin 2023.
• Digging Up Jericho. Past, Present and Future, eds. R.T. Sparks, B. Finlayson, B. Wagemakers and J.M. Briffa, Archaeopress, Oxford 2020.
• Catalogue of Artefacts from Malta in the British Museum (with C. Sagona), Archaeopress, Oxford 2017.
• The Figural World of the Southern Levant during the Late Iron Age, PhD thesis, University College London 2017.
• Brace sotto la cenere. Racconti di scautismo clandestino romano al tempo della giungla silente (1928-1944), AGESCI Roma 77, Roma 2026.

Articles

Fr Scott Brodeur, S.J.

Director of Programmes for the Collegium Maximum; Full Professor in the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical Gregorian University.

He works on the letters of Paul and their theology. He has taught Biblical Theology at the Gregorian since 1991, directed the Faculty’s Department of Biblical Theology from 2018 to 2021, and has directed more than forty doctoral dissertations.

Books

• Ripensare Bellarmino tra teologia, filosofia e storia. Atti del convegno internazionale nel IV centenario della morte di San Roberto Bellarmino (1621-2021), ed. S. Brodeur et al., Analecta Gregoriana 335, GBPress, Roma 2023.
• Deslocamentos hermeneuticos. A hermeneutica entre a Teologia e a Filosofia, Filosofia e Interdisciplinaridade 72, Porto Alegre 2017.
• Il cuore di Cristo è il cuore di Paolo. Studio introduttivo esegetico-teologico delle lettere Paoline, vol. 2, Theologia 11, Roma 2013, pp. 433.
• Il cuore di Paolo è il cuore di Cristo. Studio introduttivo esegetico-teologico delle lettere Paoline, vol. 1, Theologia 2, Roma 2010, pp. 394.
• The Holy Spirit’s Agency in the Resurrection of the Dead. An Exegetico-Theological Study of 1Corinthians 15:44b-49 and Romans 8:9-13, TG.T 14, Roma 1996, pp. 300.

Articles

Fr Željko Paša, S.J.

Director of Programmes for the Pontifical Oriental Institute; Full Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Eastern Christian Studies of the Pontifical Oriental Institute (Pontifical Gregorian University).

He works on Syriac and Arabic Christian literature, editing and translating its texts, in particular the theological works of ‘Abdīshō‘ bar Brīkha, metropolitan of Nisibis (d. 1318). He is a researcher at the Centre de documentation et de recherches arabes chrétiennes (CEDRAC) of the Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut, editor in chief of Orientalia Christiana Analecta, and a member of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East.

Edited volumes

• La division de l’Église rūm d’Antioche en 1724 et la construction des identités confessionnelles orthodoxe et catholique, eds. B. Heyberger, Ž. Paša and R. el Gemayel, Textes et études sur l’Orient chrétien 8, USJ-CEDRAC, Beirut 2024, pp. xii + 707.
• Christianity, Islam, and the Syriac Renaissance: The Impact of ‘Abdīshō‘ Bar Brīkha. Papers Collected on His 700th Anniversary (1318-2018), eds. S. Rassi and Ž. Paša, OCA 316, PIO, Roma 2024, pp. 310.
• Autocephaly: Coming of Age in Communion. Historical, Canonical, Liturgical and Theological Studies, eds. E.G. Farrugia and Ž. Paša, 2 vols., OCA 314–315, PIO, Roma 2023, pp. viii + 1328.
• Actes du congrès « L’Orient chrétien dans l’Occident Latin ». 300e anniversaire de la Bibliotheca Orientalis d’Assemani (1719-2019), Tome I, ed. Ž. Paša, Parole de l’Orient 47 (2021), pp. xviii + 428.
• Between the Cross and the Crescent. Studies in Honor of Samir Khalil Samir, S.J. on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, ed. Ž. Paša, OCA 304, PIO, Roma 2018, pp. xlii + 800.

Articles