Birth and Early Development of Modern Biblical Philology in the Eastern Slavic and Balkan World

Programme

At the end of the 15th century and during the 16th century, modern biblical philology developed in the West based on the new tools promoted by humanism. These impulses brought about a new approach to the textual tradition of the Bible, requiring a comparison with the Greek and Hebrew originals. Scholars in this field generally focus on the decisive contribution of certain figures, starting with Erasmus of Rotterdam, and are interested in the development of textual criticism especially at the time of the Lutheran Reformation and the accompanying publishing activity.
The workshop aims to broaden the view to Eastern Balkan Europe, which, despite not having the same educational structures, scientific instrumentation, and adequate resources, and at the same time manifesting difficulties and resistance, showed itself in certain respects permeable to the processes that were taking place in the West, facing the problem of renewing, and updating Bible versions and adopting the printing press for their dissemination.

Keywords:

Chairs

Marcello Garzaniti

University of Florence

Jerzy Ostapczuk

Christian Theological Academy in Warsaw

Sergejus Temčinas

Institute of Lithuanian Language (Vilnius)

Sofia 2024 Call for Papers

In recent decades, important research has developed on the Slavonic Bible tradition of the 15th and 16th centuries, examining the activities of writing and printing centers, as well as some personalities. So far, mainly certain manuscript and printed sources have been studied, such as, for example, the Gennady's Bible, the Ostrog Bible, the Makarije Gospel or the Peresopnice Gospel, or the activity of figures, such as Francysk Skaryna (Skorina), Matfej Desjatyj or Maximus the Greek.

At the time, the problem of reconstructing a correct Slavonic version of the Bible reflecting the initial Cyrillic-Methodian ideal was primarily posed. At the same time, a linguistic update was considered necessary, considering the distance that had matured between Slavonic and the spoken languages. Some also posed the problem of dealing with the originals of the Slavonic Bible, which from the very beginning was oriented towards the Greek text.

We would like to invite all those who have dealt with these issues to take part in a workshop that would particularly highlight the influence of modern biblical philology and the spread of the printed Bible in the Eastern Slavic and Balkan area, trying to reconstruct an overall panorama of the Slavic world of Eastern Christian tradition between the 15th and 16th centuries.