Press release on the project launch

Since April 2024, a research project of the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig has been dedicated to the complete digital documentation of the testimonies of Hellenistic Judaism and the commentary of the writings of the New Testament in the light of these Jewish traditions. The project is part of the Academies' Program, which is currently the largest long-term research program in the humanities and cultural sciences in the Federal Republic of Germany, funded by the federal and state governments and coordinated by the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities.

In the research project “Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti digital”, the traditions of Judaism from the Hellenistic-Roman period are fully documented in the temporal and spatial context of the New Testament and commented on in relation to the New Testament. This also illustrates the history and development of Judaism between ca. 300 BC and 200 AD and its diverse influence on Greco-Roman culture. The research results will be made available on a widely networked online platform and in book form. The project of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig, based at the University of Leipzig, will run for 15 years.

The New Testament as part of the literature of early Judaism

“For us, the fundamental insight is that the writings of the New Testament themselves belong to the Jewish writings of that era,” says Prof. Jens Herzer from the Faculty of Theology at Leipzig University, who is leading the academy project together with three other colleagues. “The texts that became canonical in Christianity were written in the context of Jewish-Hellenistic culture and are therefore an original part of the literary history of Hellenistic Judaism, even if they were not recognized as such for a long time,” says the scholar. For the first time, parallels from all surviving testimonies of the literary and material culture of early Judaism are placed alongside the biblical text, edited, newly translated, contextualized and commented on in order to demonstrate the affiliation of the New Testament writings to Jewish cultural and intellectual history.

Transfer intended

In addition to the academic objectives, a transfer at various levels is also a declared intention of the project. In view of the current debate surrounding anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism in the church and society, this aspect is becoming increasingly important. “We would like to offer further training for pastors and teachers, but also for lay volunteers in the parishes,” says Dr. Nicole Oesterreich, the research team leader.

Project with tradition

The idea of the project has a long history dating back to at least the 18th century and is closely linked to research into the history of religion in Leipzig and Central Germany. However, due to the volume of material and limited financial and human resources, the project could never be realized. Not least the new possibilities of digitization are now opening the way to its realization on the basis of long-term funding within the framework of the Academies' Programme.

In addition to Herzer and Oesterreich, the project is led by theologians Prof. Dr. Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr (Friedrich Schiller University Jena), Prof. Dr. Christfried Böttrich (University of Greifswald) and Prof. Dr. Roland Deines (Liebenzell International University of Applied Sciences). Experts from all over Germany and beyond have been entrusted with writing the commentaries.

Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti digital
Additional information: www.saw-leipzig.de/cjh; https://cjhnt-info.saw-leipzig.de
Duration: 15 years, Project in the academies program: www.akademienunion.de/forschung/akademienprogramm

Press contact: Agnes Silberhorn, Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig, Press and public relations:
silberhorn[at]saw-leipzig.de | 0341 697642-50
Prof. Dr. Jens Herzer, project leader: herzer[at]uni-leipzig.de | 0341 97-35420
Dr. Nicole Oesterreich: oesterreich[at]saw-leipzig.de | 0341 97-35424

Visuals: https://www.saw-leipzig.de/bilder_cjh

The Academies' Programme is a research funding programme co-financed by the German federal government and individual federal states. Coordinated by the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities, the Programme intends to retrieve and explore our cultural heritage, to make it accessible and highlight its relevance to the present, as well as to preserve it for the future.

Background information

The Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum (CJH) comprises the entirety of the surviving literary, non-literary and material evidence of early, pre-rabbinic Judaism from the Hellenistic-Roman world from a period between around 300 BC and 200 AD. The aim of the 15-year project launched in April by the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig is to record the CJH in full, digitize it and comment on its relationship to the New Testament. The focus is on the significance of the testimonies for the interpretation of the New Testament from the roots of Judaism, which in turn was influenced by Greco-Roman culture.

What types of sources are examined?

The sources considered include the Greek translation of the Old Testament written in Hebrew, which was also used in the early church, texts by Hellenistic-Jewish authors and texts written by non-Jewish authors on Jewish topics. In addition to the literary texts, these include relevant coin finds, inscriptions and papyri, including the Qumran scrolls discovered in the 20th century. Each New Testament biblical passage is juxtaposed with ancient Hellenistic-Jewish texts and translations and commented on in terms of their mutual references and peculiarities. The research team also includes and supplements existing Bible commentaries. The researchers have surviving translations of many now lost Greek originals, for example in Latin, Old Ethiopic, Syriac, Old Church Slavonic or Georgian, some of which are much more recent, for example from the Middle Ages.

Long plannend major project

Efforts for a project of this type and scope have existed for a long time. However, they have so far only been implemented in fragments and carried on by individual theologians for personal motivation over generations of researchers. Since the first works of theologians Joachim Camerarius in the 16th century, Johann Jakob Wettstein (1693-1754) and C. F. Georg Heinrici (1844-1915), they have been closely associated with Leipzig.

“A major problem in the project's orientation to date, however, has been the theologically intentional but essentially artificial separation of New Testament texts from their Jewish roots,” explains Dr. Nicole Oesterreich. “However, these connections can be clearly demonstrated on the basis of existing traditions and source comparisons. In other words, the New Testament didn't just fall from the sky,” says the theologian. The separation meant that parts of the project were treated separately and the Jewish sources were only dealt with to a very limited extent.

The current project will now create a digital multilingual research platform for ancient studies, which will enable the realization of the extensive project in a collaborative form for the first time. It implements interfaces for further corpora of ancient sources and thus guarantees a sustainable continuation of the research work.

Researchers and interested laypersons will have access to a wide range of display options for the ancient language source texts once they have been implemented. A series of commentaries in book form will be published in parallel to the online project. Students can complete a doctorate as part of the project.

Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig

Since its foundation as the Royal Saxon Society of Sciences and Humanities in 1846, the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig has been committed to the tradition of Leibniz's academy idea of bringing together leading scientists from a wide range of disciplines for regular discourse as a learned society and also to conducting long-term research in the catchment area of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. As a community of scholars, the Academy consists of up to 90 full members who reside or work in the states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt or Thuringia. Furthermore, the Academy consists of up to 90 corresponding members and honorary members. Up to 15 young academics can help shape Academy life in the Young Forum.

As a research institution, the focus is on long-term projects in the humanities and cultural sciences to make cultural heritage accessible, most of which are part of the Academy's unique Europe-wide program. Digital humanities are another focus of the Academy's work, and numerous joint projects on this topic are coordinated by the Academy.

The Academy is currently working on more than 20 projects, many of them in close cooperation with universities, colleges and non-university research institutions. For example, a great linguistic tradition is being continued with the development of academic dictionaries such as the Old High German Dictionary. Annotated editions of works such as the Leipzig Mendelssohn Complete Edition and letter editions such as the Schumann or Gottsched correspondence are further focal points of work, as is research into cultural history, e.g. the inter-academic project “Monasteries in the High Middle Ages” or the “Encyclopaedia of Jewish Cultures”. Projects such as the “Bibliotheca Arabica” and the “Scientific processing of Buddhist cave paintings in the Kuča region of the Northern Silk Road” also enable the printed and digital indexing, safeguarding and visualization of cultural world heritage. The work often results in comprehensive digital portals such as the “PROPYLÄEN. Research Platform on Goethe's Biographica” or, since the beginning of 2023, the ‘BACH Research Portal’, in which all available archival sources on the entire Bach family of musicians are digitally indexed and made publicly accessible for the first time.

In numerous series of events, experts from science and politics are invited to advance the public discourse on current social and science policy issues.

Text: Agnes Silberhorn and Birgit Pfeiffer.