The symposium will be held on November 05-07, 2024. The theme is: "Pray for peace for Jerusalem" (Psalm 122:6).

The divine-human, messianic and eschatological gift of peace in the Holy Land.

22 to 26 July 2024 in Utrecht, the Netherlands

The course description can be found below. The Summer School will be taught by experts of and invited by the Centre for Contextual Biblical Interpretation at the Protestant Theological University and the Faculty of Religion and Theology of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. See more information at: https://www.pthu.nl/ccbi/about-ccbi/.

In addition, exposures to diverse ways of reading the Bible in communities will be part of the program. The course “Biblical Interpretation in Diverse Communities: Methods, Perspectives, Challenges” focuses on the question “How people in diverse communities use the Bible and how to research this?”

Participants will examine concrete cases of Biblical interpretation in across a spectrum of community contexts, challenging them to reflect on ways of studying them. As attention for the contribution of so-called “intuitive” or “ordinary” Bible readers in Biblical interpretation increases, the need for attentive approaches of understanding the many voices involved in reading the Bible increases too. Researching the Bible by listening to and comprehending its usage extends beyond and challenges traditional forms of Biblical exegesis and hermeneutical framework common to Biblical scholarship.  The classes of the course will address questions such as: How to research the function of the Bible in activities organized by different church traditions? How do people make sense of the Bible? How does the Bible assist them in making sense of their lives?

In addressing these questions, the course considers diverse communities, including both traditional churches and groups outside them. Particular attention is given to communities with marginalized identities, such as queer, migrant, or poor. The course challenges participants to reflect on whether and how contextual factors such as age, gender, and socio-economic status require different research methods when examining the role of the Bible within different communities. Additionally, students are asked to reflect on their own positionality and its relationship to researching the Bible in diverse communities of interpretation.  Our target audience includes MA/PhD students, advanced BA students in theology, religious studies, or related disciplines; professionals (pastors, teachers, Bible translators, etc.), and researchers. The official application page is https://utrechtsummerschool.nl/courses/humanities/biblical-interpretation-in-diverse-communities-methods-perspectives-challenges.

In search of the unity of the book of Isaiah

The Book of Isaiah is too diverse to be considered as a unified whole but too united to be regarded as just a mere compilation of different parts. The issue is not about unity or complexity, but about unity in complexity. After decades of combat, the time is ripe not only for a cease-fire but for a common effort among synchronists and diachronists. Both should mutually accept the restrictions of their approaches and recognize the strengths of each other’s methodology. One restriction concerns the possibility to decipher in full the redaction history, the different stages of the literary development. There is a growing scepticism about editorial layers that shaped the whole Book of Isaiah from the beginning to the end. But this does not mean the end of any redaction-critical work, but calls for a self-limitation to separate first of all the more probable from the less probable and to consider the consequences of a diachronic decision on one pericope on the whole of the book. The paradigm appropriate to this book seems not that of one final redaction or final redactions, but that of sectional compositions (Teilkompositionen) building upon one another. Methodologically needed is a »diachronically- reflected synchrony«, which analyses the existing textual fabric keeping in mind the nearly four hundred years of literary growth. A promising way seems to apply the »diachronically-reflected synchrony« to the commonly recognized sections of the book (1–12; 13–27; 28–35; 36–39; 40– 55; 56–66). The outcome might be that each of these sections represents the book of Isaiah in a nutshell under different aspects but surely always from the perspective of Israel in the Late Persian/ Early Hellenistic Period.

But what is the whole book about? It is certainly not sufficient to single out key words or similar phenomena and follow them throughout the sixty-six chapters, since the book of Isaiah is as complex on the synchronic as on the diachronic level. Every synchronic observation should be accompanied by a diachronic reflection taking into account the changing historical situation of the text-producer and their first addressees. It’s not enough to pretend that the book of Isaiah has grown more or less stringently from front to back so that the oldest texts stand at the beginning and the youngest at the end. The requirements for the interpretation of Proto-Isaiah are particularly high in this respect, because not only in the first chapter, but in all others as well, the growth of the entire book must always be taken into account. If one takes the interpenetration of older and younger texts seriously, then only scribal circles can be held responsible for this ambitious enterprise. This is all the more valid when one considers the literary connections both in the 66 chapters itself and with regard to other parts of the Hebrew Bible, to the Pentateuch, to other prophetic books and especially to the Psalms. The leading traditions of Ancient Israel like the ones of the patriarchs, Exodus, Moses, David, Zion, but also of the Paradise Garden, Noah, etc. were creatively integrated into this multi-layered, multifaceted literary masterpiece from four centuries of prophetic reflection on YHWH, His people and the nations. The dynamics, the poetical forces, the tradents (Trägerkreise) behind this magistral book will be examined, as well as the question of how the earliest receptions read and understood it.

10 Main lectures (4 english; 4 german; 2 french)

Ulrich Berges: Presidential address:

1. Auf der Suche nach der Einheit des Buches Jesaja. Zwischen synchronem Anspruch und diachroner Herausforderung

2. Hugh Williamson: Redaction-criticism in Proto-Isaiah and its repercussions on the Book of Isaiah

3. Marvin Sweeney: Gains and losses of a one view reading of the book of Isaiah

4. Konrad Schmid: Zeit und Geschichte als Determinanten des Jesajabuchs

5. Judith Gärtner: Das Buch Jesaja und seine Trägerkreise

6. Katie Heffelfinger, Lyrics and Poetics in the Book of Isaiah and the consequences for the history of composition

7. Uta Schmidt : Das Buch Jesaja in genderkritischer/ feministischer Perspektive

8. Marcello Fidanzio/ Hagit Maoz: Le grand rouleau d’Isaïe de Qumrân : approche matérielle.

9. Rodrigo de Sousa: L’Isaïe grec et ses implications pour la recherche de l‘unité du livre d'Isaïe hébreu

10. Antti Laato : The Book of Isaiah in Jewish-Christian reception

4 Seminars

 
Nederlands: Archibald van Wieringen: Leesstrategieën in en van het boek Jesaja

German: Joachim Eck: Intra-textuelle Verbindungen des Jesajabuchs zur hebräischen Bibel

English: Alphonso Groenewald/ Liza Esterhuizen: The Book of Isaiah and trauma/ resilience studies

French: Pierre van Hecke: Métaphores et langage figuratif et la cohérence du livre d’Ésaïe

Offered short papers

 
The offered short lectures can cover all topics related to the book of Isaiah and its ancient versions. A wide variety of methods is expressly desired. The focus is on literary, historical, literary-historical and reception-historical observations. It would be desirable if these individual studies would always also take into account the book of Isaiah.

Parallel Session I/ V: Literary Issues

Parallel Session II/ VI: Historical Issues

Parallel Session III/ VII: Literary Historical Issues (Especially Intra- and Intertextuality; redaction and composition)

Parallel Session IV/ VIII: Reception Historical Issues