Dale Allison - Career

Career

Prior to joining Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 1997, Allison served on the faculties of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas and Friends University in Wichita, Kansas. He is the author of books on early Christian eschatology, the Gospel of Matthew, the so-called Sayings Source of the Q document, the historical Jesus, and the Testament of Abraham. Allison received his PhD from Duke University. He has been called "the premier Matthew specialist of his generation in the United States" and "North America's most complete New Testament scholar."

He is a prominent defender of the view of the historical Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet expecting the imminent end of the age, and the "thoroughgoing eschatology" of Albert Schweitzer. This is laid out in his book Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet. This went against the views of the Jesus Seminar, particularly the influential views of scholars like John Dominic Crossan, whose reconstruction of Jesus was largely free of apocalyptic elements.