The last several decades have witnessed new approaches to the history and literature of Early Judaism, especially since the beginning of the 21st century. These new insights and methods have prompted fresh questions and different perspectives on Early Judaism. In this conference, an international group of scholars will assess developments from the last 25 years of research and look ahead to where the discipline might be headed.
Dates: March 24-26, 2025
Location: Linderman 200
Schedule Overview
Monday, March 24, 2025
9:15-9:45 am: Welcome
9:45-11:30 am: Session #1
11:30 am -1:30 pm: Coffee and Lunch Break
1:30-3:15 pm: Session #2
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
8:30-10:15 am: Session #3
10:15-10:30 am: Coffee and Snacks
10:30 am -12:15 pm: Session #4
12:15-2:00 pm: Lunch Break
2:00-4:00 pm: Session #5
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
9:15-11:15 am: Session #6 and Wrap-up Discussion
Sessions are open to students and the public and take place in Linderman 200.
Discussion Topics
The session topics are not final and are subject to change. Below is the tentative schedule.
Day 1: Monday, March 24, 2025
Session #1 (9:45–11:30 am): Ancient Judaism
Hindy Najman (Oxford University): Prolegomena to Composition and Pluriformity in Ancient Jewish Texts
Katell Berthelot (CNRC, Aix-Marseille University): The History of the Jews in the Greco- Roman world: Shifting Paradigms
Adele Reinhartz (University of Ottawa): The New Testament in/and the Study of Early Judaism
Hanna Tervanotko (McMaster University): Scripture Divination as an Intuitive and Technical Method
Session #2 (1:30–3:15 pm): Dead Sea Scrolls
Esther Chazon (Hebrew University of Jerusalem): Revolution and Evolution in the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls: 2000-2025 and Beyond
Charlotte Hempel (University of Birmingham, UK): The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Great Outdoors
Sidnie Crawford (University of Nebraska): The Cave 2Q Scroll Collection as Part of the Qumran Scroll Collection
Erich Gruen (UC Berkeley): The Rewritten Bible
Day 2: Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Session #3 (8:30–10:15 am): Apocalyptic/Apocalypses
Judith Newman (University of Toronto): Rupture and Re-creation
Matthew Goff (Florida State University): Apocalypse Now and Then: Apocalypticism, QAnon and Conspiracy Theories
Matthias Henze (Rice University): As It Could Have Been: The Hebrew Bible and Jewish Apocalypses
Samuel Adams (Union Presbyterian Seminary, Richmond): Ben Sira’s Awareness of and Response to Enochic Traditions: A Reappraisal
Session #4 (10:30 am –12:15 pm): Scribes and Wisdom Literature
Greg Schmidt Goering (University of Virginia): Sound and Memory in Sirach: A Case for Investigating the Sensory Worlds of Early Judaism
Frédérique Michèle Rey (Université de Lorraine): Categorizing and Quantifying Variants in the Ben Sira Hebrew Manuscript Traditions
Thomas Bolin (St. Norbert College): Searching for Scribes in Ancient Roman Judaism
Jacqueline Vayntrub (Yale University): From Generation to Generation: Theorizing Transmission through the Materiality of Speech
Session #5 (2:00-4:00 pm): Reception
Francis Borchardt (NLA University College, Bergen, Norway): Never Again Shall Masada Fall: The Discovery and Use of Masada in Zionist Discourse
Jill Hicks-Keeton (University of Southern California): After ‘the Bible’ and Beyond ‘Reception History’: Studying Ancient Jewish Literature When It’s also Christian Scripture
Eva Mroczek (Dalhousie University): Ancient Judaism and Its Medieval Heirs: Opening the Canon of Comparison with a Focus on Exile and Loss
Liv Ingeborg Lied (Norwegian School of Theology, Oslo): The Modern Academic Coproduction of Ancient Jewish Literature
Loren Stuckenbruck (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universteit, Munich): The Interface of Jewish and Christian Traditions in Ge'ez Manuscripts to 1 Enoch
Day 3: Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Session #6 (9:15–11:00 am): Wrap-up Discussion
The Muriel and Philip Berman Center for Jewish Studies and Professor Benjamin Wright invite scholars to join us for these discussions on early Judaism in the 21st century.