General
The course is offered as a freestanding course. It is an elective course in the one-year Master’s program in Eastern Christian Studies.
Course Description
The primary aim of the course is to study various forms by which the Bible was received in Eastern Christian communities. Such forms include classical patristic commentaries and theological treatises, but also liturgy, icons, and rewritings of biblical material in hagiographies, historiographies, and poetry. Throughout the course, students discuss the Eastern Christian reception of the Bible in relation to findings and methods used in modern biblical criticism as well as reception theory. Certain trends of interpretation, for instance, began in the biblical texts themselves (such as intertextuality and re-writings).
In addition to the use of the Bible by Christians in late antiquity and medieval times, students are provided with a broader overview of the history of interpretation. The latter includes examples from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Rabbinic and medieval Jewish material, as well as a glimpse into how the Bible was interpreted in Muslim communities, and the interaction that sometimes took place between various religious groups as they grappled with understanding the same biblical sources.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students are expected to be able to:
Knowledge and understanding
- describe the place of Eastern Christian Scriptures, their interpretations and use in relation to the broader field of the history of interpretation
- identify common positions in the current scholarly discourse of Eastern Christian Scriptures
- explain methodological and theoretical differences and similarities in studying a text in its original context and in its later reception
Competence and skills
- independently compare divergent and convergent trends in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim interpretations, and make general conclusions even with limited material
- identify and analyze interpretational strategies in source material with the use of appropriate critical methods within a given time frame
- illustrate divergent and convergent trends in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim interpretations
Judgement and approach
- independently assess an interpretation in light of its many contexts
- evaluate ethical and social consequences of a given interpretation in both modern and ancient material.
See Course Plan for more details.
Course Literature
Ashbrook Harvey, Susan (2010). Song and Memory: Biblical Women in Syriac Tradition. Marquette Univ. Pr., Milwaukee, Wisc. (92 pp).
Pentiuc, Eugen J. (2014). The Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press (414 pp).
Articles and primary source texts will be added (ca 400 pp), including:
Berrin, Shani (2005). “Qumran Pesharim,” in Biblical Interpretation at Qumran (ed. by Matthias Henze). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 110–133;
Cordoni, Constanza and Gerhard Langer (2014). Narratology, Hermeneutics, and Midrash: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Narratives from the Late Antiquity to Modern Times. Göttingen Niedersachsen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht & Vienna University Press,15–24; 177–186; 251–263.
Gebreananaye, Meron T. (2021). “Gospel Writing in Transition: A Look at the Ethiopic Ta-‘ammərä ‘Iyasus,” in Beyond Canon: Early Christianity and the Ethiopic Textual Tradition (ed. by Meron T. Gebreananaye, Logan Williams, and Francis Watson). London: T&T Clark, 131–144.
Gillingham, Susan (2019). “Jewish and Christian Approaches to Suffering in the Reception of Psalm 137.” OTE 32/2: 444–463.