Chairs

2008-2009 Programme

Future Proceedings of the Seminar

The Early Christianity and the Early Judaism and Rabbinics groups will continue the joint program begun in 2008 under the theme The Use of the Bible for Group Demarcation in the Second Temple Period and Late Antiquity. CALL FOR PAPERS The Early Judaism and Rabbinics and the Early Christianity groups of the EABS will jointly explore ways in which ancient Jews and Christians interpreted the Bible for constructing a group identity or when delineating the boundaries between themselves and others. Various biblical figures, themes, narratives and interpretative motifs were used to denote self perception, to mark the other as other and to create the group identity against other contemporary tendencies. Several cultural practices took part in this process, such as methods of interpretation of the biblical text, application of the Bible to the liturgy and ritual, as well as applying the content of biblical events to the current time. All these phenomena will be the object of our study in the next meeting of the EABS. We would like to approach the study of such interpretative strategies as was applied to the different subgroups and subcultures in late antiquity that defined their identity by reference to the Bible, groups as Judaism and Christianity, as well as other groups and streams of thought. Papers may discuss themes such as the importance of genealogical origin (i.e. Davidic or priestly decent) for group demarcation; the identity function of eschatological model narrated by the subgroup; the use of biblical archetypes for defining the exemplar of a group member; the relation between hermeneutical strategies (i.e. allegory, fables, or peshers) and group identity; the assigning of biblical categories to other populations (as Hellenistic or pagan), interpretative motifs prevailing among particular subgroups and so on. Please send suggested proposals by January 31st, 2009 to Outi Lehtipuu (outi.lehtipuu@helsinki.fi).