Radio Interview on CJHNTdigital Project for MDR Kultur

Interview Details

• Interviewer: Hartmut Schade
• Interviewees: Professor Dr. Jens Herzer (Project Leader) and Dr. Nicole Oesterreich (Research team leader)
• Broadcast Date: December 15, 2024

Download the German .mp3-file.

English Translation of the German transcript

0:00: [Hartmut Schade:] A novel about Josef and Maria [Note: It should actually say Aseneth], apocalyptic and philosophical texts, historical reports by Flavius Josephus - these form part of the writings that Jens Herzer is dealing with.
0:12: [Jens Herzer:] We are also specifically interested in what we call everyday culture - documents like purchase contracts, marriage certificates, divorce documents, and receipts.
0:23: [Hartmut Schade:] In these documents, the Leipzig Professor of New Testament finds familiar terms in an entirely different context. For instance, "pistis" - meaning "belief" - in secular contracts stands for loyalty and reliability.
0:38: [Jens Herzer:] When one realizes that people were confronted with such terms in everyday life, and associated certain meanings with them from daily experience, it's naturally of high value to look at our New Testament texts and interpretation traditions in a new light. [Hartmut Schade:] For example, in the story of the Good Samaritan.
0:57: A man is robbed and left half-dead, and a priest passes by without helping him.
1:03: Unlike the Samaritan. However, in the Jewish text, it's not about neighborly love, but about adhering to Jewish purity laws, says Dr. Nicole Oesterreich from the Saxon Academy of Sciences.
1:17: [Nicole Oesterreich:] The priest is forbidden from touching anything dead, and he doesn't know if this person has already died, which would prevent him from performing his priestly duties - which were, of course, his livelihood.
1:29: The entire debate is therefore about whether the purity law for priests is more important than neighborly love.
1:37: [Hartmut Schade:] The correct interpretation of the law is the central theme in Judaism of that time, and this is reflected in the texts, says Jens Herzer.
1:47: [Jens Herzer:] When reading the Sermon on the Mount, it's a discussion about Jewish law: How does one correctly interpret this Jewish law?
1:55: And this is, I think, a crucial point to understand - that we are moving very closely within Jewish contexts with the Jesus tradition.
2:05: [Hartmut Schade:] The plural "Jewish contexts" is important.
2:09: The writings being digitally compiled in the Academy project were created between 300 BCE and 200 CE.
2:17: This is the time when Judea is a Roman province and the Temple in Jerusalem is destroyed, with many Jews fleeing the country. They subsequently live in Egyptian Alexandria, Mesopotamia, Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece.
2:32: From all these regions, there are Jewish texts, influenced by the language and culture of their origin.
2:39: [Nicole Oesterreich:] I greatly enjoy first reading the texts literarily and perceiving the authors as such, and then moving forward.
2:49: What does this actually mean for us today?
2:52: And that is the theological question we must always ask.
2:55: If people in the first century read this differently, what does that mean for us?
3:01: [Hartmut Schade:] In individual cases, the collection of all Jewish texts spanning 500 years and almost the entire Mediterranean region will change our understanding of the New Testament.
3:11: Yes, says the Leipzig New Testament scholar Jens Herzer.
3:15: [Jens Herzer:] I think it definitely has consequences when you no longer perceive Christianity as a separate and distinct religion from Judaism, as we are traditionally accustomed, but rather as a faith movement that emerges from Judaism and remains connected to it.
3:36: [Hartmut Schade:] The idea of collecting and commenting on all Jewish texts from the environment of the Evangelists and Apostles is already over 200 years old.
3:45: It dates from a time when the writings of the New Testament were first classified in their historical context, leading to new insights.
3:55: This can now also be expected with the newly emerging digital collection of the Saxon Academy of Sciences.