9th Enoch Seminar, June 18-23, 2017: “From tôrāh to Torah: Variegated Notions of Torah from the First Temple Period to Late Antiquity”
Chairs: William M. Schniedewind (University of California at Los Angeles) and Jason M. Zurawski (University of Groningen), in collaboration with Gabriele Boccaccini (Director of the Enoch Seminar).
Date: June 18-23, 2017
Place: Monastero di Camaldoli, Camaldoli, Italy
Area of Focus:
The Enoch Seminar and the resultant volume will examine the diverse understandings of tôrāh, beginning with the texts of the Hebrew Bible through to the Second Temple period and late antiquity, moving beyond traditional paradigms such as the early usage of tôrāh as general instruction vs. the transition to nomos, as “law,” or the development of a “normative” notion of Torah (capitalization intentional) in the Second Temple period. Participants are encouraged to rethink our scholarly assumptions and preconceptions on the topic and tackle the questions anew in light of more critical philological and historical approaches. We seek to examine the various notions of tôrāh (and nomos) in all relevant literature, regardless of scholarly or denominational corpora, both within ancient Jewish/Judean traditions and in light of broader influences, whether Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman, Persian, etc. As this meeting follows and builds upon the work from the Fifth Nangeroni Meeting, “Second Temple Jewish Paideia in its Ancient Near Eastern and Hellenistic Contexts” (June/July 2015), discussions pertaining to the connections between tôrāh/Torah/nomos/dat and education, pedagogy, wisdom, etc., are especially encouraging. Our aim will be to discuss the variety of ways that tôrāh was defined and developed in the literature.
Visite: 4 Enoch: The Online Encyclopedia of Second Temple Judaism, and Christian and Islamic Origins