Save the Date: Twin Symposium in Leipzig 2027/2030

09/15/2027–09/18/2027 in Leipzig

Towards a History of Early Jewish Literature

The scholarly study of Hellenistic Jewish literature began in earnest during the second half of the nineteenth century, within the framework of the Wissenschaft des Judentums, Old and New Testament scholarship, and classical philology. An initial milestone, and simultaneously a comprehensive introduction to the field, was Emil Schürer's monumental work on the history of the Jewish people in the New Testament period. Around the same time, two substantial German text collections appeared (with parallel developments in England), making these new or newly accessible sources available to scholars. (Emil Kautzsch, ed., Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments, 2 vols. (Tübingen: Mohr, 1900); Paul Riessler, Altjüdisches Schrifttum außerhalb der Bibel (Augsburg: Filser, 1928).)

A complete revision and updating of the material treated by Schürer, together with the Qumran texts that Schürer could not have known, was undertaken in the English edition begun in 1964 and completed between 1973 and 1987 by Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar, and Martin Goodman; the sections on Philo (by Jenny Morris) and Qumran (by Geza Vermes) were completely rewritten. (Vol. I: 1973; vol. II: 1979; vol. III.1: 1986; vol. III.2: 1987. The increased amount of source material necessitated the division of the third volume into two parts. A distinctive feature of Schürer's presentation, retained in the revised edition, is the organisation of Jewish literature by language: § 32 Jewish Literature Composed in Hebrew or Aramaic (III.1, 177–469, including literature from Qumran, 364–469); § 33A Jewish Literature Composed in Greek (III.1, 470–704); § 33B Jewish Literature of which the Original Language is Uncertain (III.2, 705–808); § 34 The Jewish Philosopher Philo (III.2, 809–889). For a comprehensive assessment of this third volume with important additions and corrections, see Martin Hengel, "Der alte und der neue 'Schürer'," JSS 35 (1990): 19–64, repr. in idem, Judaica, Hellenistica et Christiana: Kleine Schriften II, WUNT 109 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 157–199.)

Since that time, the number of introductions, general overviews, text editions, and commentary series has grown in a most encouraging manner. Knowledge of Jewish literature from the third century BCE to the third century CE has consequently attained a hitherto unmatched depth and level of detail. To this must be added the growing recognition that the individual writings of the New Testament, which came into being roughly between 50 and 120 CE, are, from a historical perspective, themselves part of this Jewish literary history.

What has so far been lacking is a history of Jewish literature that adopts a diachronic approach. The presentations available to date (cf. the arrangement of sources in ATAP, JSHRZ, OTP, CRINT, CHJ, Outside the Bible, but also in Kraft and Nickelsburg, eds., 1986; Denis 2000; Woschitz 2005; Docherty 2014; Siegert 2016; Kulik et al., eds., 2019; Henze and Werline, eds., 2020) are organised almost without exception according to a combination of literary genres (historiography, testamentary literature, apocalypses, poetry, etc.), linguistic demarcations (Hebrew-Aramaic, Greek, or originally Greek), and coherent textual corpora (e.g. Qumran, Philo, inscriptions), largely forgoing any diachronic perspective. A diachronic treatment is also absent in standard introductory works on the Septuagint. Such an approach appears in outline only where Jewish literature forms part of a historical account of ancient Judaism (cf. e.g. Collins 2000; Nickelsburg 2005/2018). The objection that many texts cannot be dated with certainty is well founded; yet there are a great many texts that can be placed within relatively narrow limits, or that at least presuppose a clear terminus a quo (or, in the case of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a terminus ad quem).

The aim of the two conferences planned by CJHNTdigital is to provide methodological and substantive groundwork for a chronological account of early Jewish writings that takes as comprehensive a view as possible of all extant texts, as well as of epigraphic, numismatic, and papyrological documents. The tripartite framework "Preserve, Learn, Renew" identifies discernible, if not always sharply separable, lines of intention underlying this extensive literary production:

• "Preserve" encompasses the continuation of already existing biblical texts into the second century BCE, their transmission (manuscript copies with all the attendant textual interventions), and the successive translation into Greek (OG, LXX) and Aramaic (Targumim).
• "Learn" refers to the readiness of Jewish authors to appropriate Greek literary forms in particular and to employ them fruitfully within their own context (drama, novels, biographical literature, engagement with Hellenistic educational discourse, ethical discourse, and Greek philosophical thought). It also encompasses the effort to adapt and reframe the existing biblical tradition in the face of new social, political, and intellectual challenges, whether through retellings of Jewish biblical history or through commentary and exegesis, so as to preserve its contemporary relevance for the Jewish community and, in part, the wider community.
• "Renew" points to the fact that Jewish literature responded with considerable sensitivity to political upheavals and crises: exile and return from exile, the Hellenistic crisis, the Roman conquest, and the defeat of the First Jewish Revolt are historical turning points that were processed in literary form. The historical framework envisaged for the conferences is accordingly broadly focused on these turning points, within the context of which the New Testament writings also came into being.

Each conference will begin with a survey lecture intended to present the relevant epoch, insofar as the Jewish literature (both existing and newly produced) during that period is situated within the political history of early Judaism. A distinction will need to be drawn between texts that can be dated to a given epoch with reasonable certainty and those for which differing datings have been proposed. Attention must likewise be paid to which languages were employed and how (translation, rewriting, specific genres?), and the relevant geographical settings, since the area of Jewish settlement during this period extended from Mesopotamia to Rome and beyond, as well as across parts of North Africa. (With good reason, the first part of Schürer's third volume provides an account of the extent of Jewish settlement before turning to the history of literature.) Specific developments in the history of religion will also be taken into account.

The following introductory survey lectures are planned for the first symposium in 2027:

• Jewish literature between 250 BCE and the Hellenistic crisis (Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek)
• Jewish literature from the Hellenistic crisis to the Roman conquest of the Hasmonaean kingdom
• Jewish literature in the early imperial period

These survey lectures will be followed by a series of focused case studies addressing disputed questions of dating or selected textual corpora from the relevant period.

Questions of literary dependence and source hypotheses are not the primary focus, even if they cannot be entirely excluded: in cases of disputed dating, possible dependencies and cross-references constitute an important line of argument, and in the case of explicitly marked quotations, such intertextual references are part of the authorial intention. What is more decisive is the recognition that new literature generally arises within a twofold relationship: on the one hand, with the existing body of literature known to the respective authors, and on the other, with the contemporary literary context in which they find themselves, by which they are influenced (whether consciously or not), and upon which they seek to exert their own influence. The future reception history of a work, by contrast, is not something an author can plan for, nor is it foreseeable at the time of composition. This means that a chronologically progressive literary history, when describing the conditions of a given text's emergence, may confine itself to these two temporal axes (past and present), since the actual or absent reception history is in each case a matter for the subsequent periods, in which the influence of earlier works can be identified and demonstrated, or indeed shown to be absent.

Roland Deines

Planned Schedule

Wednesday, 09/15/2027

Thursday, 09/16/2027

Friday, 09/17/2027

Saturday, 09/18/2027 (optional)

The morning will feature an optional excursion to explore the city, followed by a joint lunch.

Appendix: Bibliography

For earlier introductions to Jewish literature of the Hellenistic-Roman period, see Lehnardt 1999, 25–32.

• ATAP — Emil Kautzsch, ed., Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments, 2 vols. (Tübingen: Mohr, 1900; repr. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1962, 1975; Hildesheim: Olms, 1992). Vol. 1: Die Apokryphen des Alten Testaments. Vol. 2: Die Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments.
• ALitNTS — Craig A. Evans and Cecilia Wassén, eds., Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2022–). Of the volumes published to date, only vol. 10 and the forthcoming vol. 6 on the LXX (announced for 2026) are directly relevant to CJHNT: Vol. 10: James R. Harrison and E. Randolph Richards, eds., Inscriptions, Papyri, and Other Artifacts (2024).
• Collins 2000 — John J. Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora, Biblical Resource Series (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ²2000).
• CHJ — The Cambridge History of Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984–): Vol. 1: Introduction; The Persian Period, ed. William D. Davies and Louis Finkelstein (1984). Vol. 2: The Hellenistic Age, ed. William D. Davies and Louis Finkelstein (1989). Vol. 3: The Early Roman Period, ed. William Horbury, William D. Davies, and John Sturdy (1999). Vol. 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, ed. Steven T. Katz (2006).
• CRINT — Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum, Section Two: The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud (Assen: Van Gorcum; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1984–1990): Vol. 1: Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. M. J. Mulder and H. Sysling (1990) (= CRINT II/1). Vol. 2: Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period: Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Qumran Sectarian Writings, Philo, Josephus, ed. Michael E. Stone (1984) (= CRINT II/2).
• Denis 1970 — Albert-Marie Denis, Introduction aux pseudépigraphes grecs d'Ancien Testament, SVTP 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1970).
• Denis 2000 — Albert-Marie Denis, with Jean-Claude Haelewyck, Introduction à la littérature religieuse judéo-hellénistique: Pseudépigraphes de l'Ancien Testament, 2 vols. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000).
• Dhont 2025 — Marieke Dhont, ed., T&T Clark Handbook of Hellenistic Jewish Literature in Greek, T&T Clark Handbooks (London: Bloomsbury, 2025).
• DiTommaso 2001 — Lorenzo DiTommaso, A Bibliography of Pseudepigrapha Research 1850–1999, JSPESup 39 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001).
• Docherty 2014 — Susan E. Docherty, The Jewish Pseudepigrapha: An Introduction to the Literature of the Second Temple Period (London: SPCK, 2014).
• EDEJ — John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow, eds., The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010).
• ESTJ — Daniel M. Gurtner and Loren T. Stuckenbruck, eds., T&T Clark Encyclopedia of Second Temple Judaism, 2 vols. (London: T&T Clark, 2020).
• Henze and Werline 2020 — Matthias Henze and Rodney Alan Werline, eds., Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2020).
• JSHRZ — Werner Georg Kümmel† and Hermann Lichtenberger, eds., Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit, 6 vols. (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1973–2017): Vol. 1: Historische und legendarische Erzählungen (JSHRZ I/1–9, 1973–2017). Vol. 2: Unterweisung in erzählender Form (JSHRZ II/1–6, 1973–1999). Vol. 3: Unterweisung in lehrhafter Form (JSHRZ III/1–7, 1974–2001). Vol. 4: Poetische Schriften (JSHRZ IV/1–3, 1974–1983). Vol. 5: Apokalypsen (JSHRZ V/1–9, 1974–2003).
• JSHRZ VI — Einführung zu den Jüdischen Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit, JSHRZ VI/1.1–5 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2000–): VI/1.1: Ulrike Mittmann-Richert, Einführung zu den historischen und legendarischen Erzählungen (2000). VI/1.2: Gerbern S. Oegema, Unterweisung in erzählender Form (2005). VI/1.4: Gerbern S. Oegema, Poetische Schriften (2002). VI/1.5: Gerbern S. Oegema, Apokalypsen (2001).
• Kraft and Nickelsburg 1986 — Robert A. Kraft and George W. E. Nickelsburg, eds., Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters, The Bible and Its Modern Interpreters 2 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986).
• Kulik et al. 2019 — Alexander Kulik, Gabriele Boccaccini, Lorenzo DiTommaso, David Hamidovic, and Michael Stone, eds., A Guide to Early Jewish Texts and Traditions in Christian Transmission (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).
• Lehnardt 1999 — Andreas Lehnardt, Bibliographie zu den jüdischen Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit, JSHRZ VI/2 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1999).
• Nickelsburg 2005 — George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah: A Historical and Literary Introduction (Minneapolis: Fortress, ²2005).
• Nickelsburg 2018 — George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jüdische Literatur zwischen Bibel und Mischna: Eine historische und literarische Einführung, trans. Gesine Palmer, ANTZ 13 (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 2018).
• NTGJC — Bruce D. Chilton, Darrell Bock, Daniel M. Gurtner, et al., eds., The New Testament Gospels in their Judaic Contexts (Leiden: Brill, 2009–): Vol. 1: A Comparative Handbook to the Gospel of Mark, ed. Bruce D. Chilton, Darrell Bock, Daniel M. Gurtner, Jacob Neusner, and Lawrence H. Schiffman (2009). Vol. 2: A Comparative Handbook to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, ed. Bruce D. Chilton, Alan J. Avery-Peck, Darrell Bock, Craig A. Evans, Daniel M. Gurtner, Jacob Neusner, Lawrence H. Schiffman, and Daniel Oden (2021). Vol. 3: Synoptikon: Streams of Tradition in Mark, Matthew, and Luke, ed. Alan Avery-Peck, Craig A. Evans, Daniel M. Gurtner, Darrell Bock, and Lawrence H. Schiffman (2022). Vol. 4: A Comparative Handbook to the Gospel of John, ed. Bruce D. Chilton, Alan J. Avery-Peck, Craig A. Evans, Darrell Bock, and Daniel M. Gurtner (2026).
• Outside the Bible — Louis H. Feldman, James L. Kugel, and Lawrence H. Schiffman, eds., Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture, 3 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013).
• OTP — James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1983–1985): Vol. 1: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments (1983). Vol. 2: Expansions of the "Old Testament" and Legends, Wisdom and Philosophical Literature, Prayers, Psalms, and Odes, Fragments of Lost Judeo-Hellenistic Works (1985).
• Siegert 2016 — Folker Siegert, Einleitung in die hellenistisch-jüdische Literatur: Apokrypha, Pseudepigrapha und Fragmente verlorener Autorenwerke (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016).
• Simkovich 2018 — Malka Z. Simkovich, Discovering Second Temple Literature: The Scriptures and Stories That Shaped Early Judaism (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018).
• Woschitz 2005 — Karl Matthäus Woschitz, Parabiblica: Studien zur jüdischen Literatur in der hellenistisch-römischen Epoche. Tradierung – Vermittlung – Wandlung (Wien: Lit, 2005).