2012-2013

Lezingenprogramma 1ste semester 2012-2013 (PDF)

Lezingenprogramma 2de semester 2012-2013 (PDF)

De voorziene lezing van donderdag 2 mei 2013, Israeli Hebrew: An Old/New Language van Prof. dr. em. Ruth Berman, zal wegens omstandigheden niet doorgaan.
Prof. Berman zal vervangen worden door Prof. dr. Isaac Kalimi (University of Chicago). Zijn lezing gaat over: Fear of Annihilation and Eternal Covenant: The Book of Esther in Jewish Thought.
Although for some reason the book of Esther is missing from among the biblical manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it has a unique place in Judaism and Jewish thought. A large number of exegeses, ballads, poems, essays, arts, etc. have been composed on it, in all times and places, throughout Jewish history and culture. Esther expresses one of the deepest fears of the Jewish people: fear of complete annihilation, which is well documented in the Hebrew Bible as well as in some extra-biblical sources. Esther responds to that fear, and proclaims the theological message that God never leaves Israel. He is the faithful God “who maintains covenantal loyalty with those who love him and keep his commandments.” Yet, the historical reality of the Jewish Diaspora is a different one. The lecture discusses this theology, history and our reception of this, as post-Shoah readers of Esther.

Bijkomende speciale lezing op 04/10/2012: Why the Name New Testament?
Prof. dr. Bernard Jackson – Liverpool Hope University
Both logic and philology suggests that the title of the Christian scriptures should have been "The New Covenant" rather than "The New Testament". Why then did the Church Fathers from Tertullian in the 2nd century adopt novum testamentum?  Was it (i) simply a confusion of the LXX and koine meanings of diatheke? (ii) Was it an allusion to the testament genre of 2nd commonwealth (apocryphal) literature (and if so with what implications)? (iii) was there an allusion to some aspects of the testament (will) (or testimony) in Roman law, or (iv) was the Hebrew Bible's notion of covenant itself regarded as essentially connected with inheritance?