Event
A full-day workshop: "Sacred Texts? Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and Qur’an in Jewish Research of the 19th Century and Beyond"
Judaism is a religion founded on sacred texts, and the understanding of those texts underwent a revolutionary transformation in the nineteenth century with the rise of academic critical study. How did the rise of academic Jewish studies impact Jews’ relationship to their sacred texts? What did Jewish scholars contribute to the study of other sacred texts, the New Testament or Qur’an, and what, if anything, was distinctively Jewish about their approach? How did the idea of sacred texts change in this period, and what new texts were added to the Jewish "canon" as a result of academic scholarship? This day-long conference will draw on fellows and invited scholars to explore these questions and more.
Seating is limited and meals will be provided; an RSVP is required.
Please register with Carrie Love (carrielo@sas.upenn.edu) by December 3rd.
10:30 am Opening Remarks
Steven Weitzman, Ella Darivoff Director, Katz Center
Katalin Franciska Rac, University of Florida/Katz Center
10:45 am Hebrew Bible
Chair: Isabel Cranz, University of Pennsylvania
The Biblical Orient according to Samson Raphael Hirsch
Michah Gottlieb, New York University
Re-writing the Hebrew Bible for Jewish Children:
Isaak Markus Jost’s New Children's Bible and Its Context
Dorothea M. Salzer, University of Potsdam/Katz Center
Reclaiming the Apocrypha as Jewish Texts
Chanan Gafni, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev & The Hebrew University of Jerusalem/Katz Center
12:30 pm Lunch
1:30 pm New Testament
Chair: Robert A. Kraft, University of Pennsylvania
Revising the Jesus Question: What Changed in the 1860s
Susannah Heschel, Dartmouth College/Katz Center
Jewish Research on Christianity in America:
Isaac Mayer Wise's The Origin of Christianity (1868)
Stefan Schorch, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg/Katz Center
2:45 pm Qur’an
Chair: Joseph E. Lowry, University of Pennsylvania
Jews Translating the Qur’an
Hanan Harif, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem/Katz Center
Hartwig Hirschfeld: Qur’anic Studies
between German and English in the Wissenschaft des Judentums
Walid A. Saleh, University of Toronto
4:00 pm Coffee break
4:30 pm Reading and Transforming Sacred Texts
Chair: Steven Weitzman, Katz Center
Susannah Heschel, Dartmouth College/Katz Center
Ismar Schorsch, The Jewish Theological Seminary/Katz Center
5:30 pm Dinner (RSVP required)
For more information visit our website http://katz.sas.upenn.edu/
or call 215-238-1290