PSCO

Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins

an Interdisciplinary Humanities Seminar
in its fiftieth-eighth year under the auspices of
The University of Pennsylvania
Department of Religious Studies
201 Cohen Hall, Philadelphia PA 19104

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Archives

Thanks to the generous labor of our secretaries, archived minutes are available for the following years of PSCO. Other archives are in the process of preparation. For a complete list of topics, see the History file.

• Year 01 “The Greek Old Testament in the Early Christian World”
  
• Year 02 “Gnosticism”
  
• Year 03 "Gospel Tradition in the Second Century" (1965–66)
• Year 04 "‘Orthodoxy’ and ‘Heresy’ in Early Christianity" (1966–67)

  The result of this study was published as the English edition of W. Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971).

• Year 05
  
• Year 06 (1968–1969)

  We don't have archived minutes, but the results of this year's seminar were collected in Benko and O'Rourke, eds., The Catacombs and the Colosseum (Valley Forge: Judson, 1971), also published as Early Church History (London: Oliphants, 1972).

• Year 07 "Apocalyptic Thought in Early Christianity" (1969–70)
• Year 08 "Jewish-Christian Relations" (1970–71)
• Year 09
  
• Year 10 "Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John" (1972–73)
• Year 11 "Creation — Images Old and New" (1973–74)
• Year 12 "Early Christianity in North Africa" (1974–75)
• Year 13 "Current Approaches to Christian Origins" (1975–76)
• Year 14 "Magic: the Phenomenon and the Issue in the Graeco-Roman World," (1976–77)
• Year 15 "Heavenly Ascent in Graeco-Roman Piety" (1977–78)
• Year 16 "Ancient School Activity in Alexandria and Rome" (1978–79)
• Year 17 "Philo of Alexandria in Relation to Ancient 'School Tradition' Speculation" (1979–80)
• Years 18–19 "Marcel Simon's Verus Israel" (1980–82)
  
• Year 20 (tapes available)
• Year 21 “Syrian Christianity” (1983–84)
• Year 22 "Origen's Contra Celsum" (1984–85)
• Year 23
  
• Year 24
  
• Year 25 "Principalities and Powers: Demons and Angels in the World of Late Antiquity" (1987–88)
• Year 26
• Year 27 “Rethinking Social Description of Jewish and Christian Communities in Late Antiquity” (1988–89)
• Year 28 “Christian Appropriation and Adaptations of Early Jewish Pseudepigrapha” (1989–90)
• Year 29 (tapes available)
• Year 30 (tapes available)
• Year 31 (tapes available)

  We don't have archived minutes, but revised versions of these presentations (with additional articles) are collected in Evolution of the Synagogue: Problems and Progress, edited by Howard Clark Kee and Lynn Cohick (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1999).

• Year 32 “Ethnicity, Identity and Alterity” (1994–95)
• Year 33 (1995–1996) “Current Research on the Historical Jesus”
• Year 34 (1996–1997) “The Apocryphal Acts”

We're looking for volunteers to transcribe or summarize other tape-recorded sessions. If you’re interested, see our most recent list of available tapes.

In addition, here is a record of presentations announced since 1997.

• Year 35 "Textual Commentary as Social Practice" (1997–1998)
• Year 36 "Religious Identities in Asia Minor in the First through the Fourth Centuries CE" (1998–1999)
• Year 37 "Ethnicity, Regionalism and Religious Developments in Late Antique Egypt" (1999–2000)
• Year 38 "The Wild Wild West: Religious and Societal Transformations on the North African Frontier" (2000–2001)
• Year 39 "On Location: How Do Martyrdoms Take Place?" (2001–2002)
• Year 40 "Parabiblical Literature" (2002–2003)
• Year 41 "Parabiblical Prosopography (in the footsteps of Lost Apocrypha by M. R. James)" (2003–2004)
• Year 42 "The Impact of Astrological (and Related) Traditions on Early Jewish and Christian Perspective" (2004–2005)
  
• Year 43 "Redescribing the Holy Man: Theoretical Frameworks and Specific Applications" (2005–2006)
  
• Year 44 "Re-thinking History, Theory, and Texts: New Theoretical and Methodological Endeavors" (2006–2007)
  
• Year 45 "Tracing the Patterns, (Un/Re-)Weaving the Threads" (2007–2008)
  
• Year 46 "Food, Self, and Community: Tradition and Transformation in Jewish and Christian Eating" (2008–2009)
  
• Year 47 "Revealing the Divine: From Greco-Roman Palestine to the Persian Empire" (2009–2010)
  
• Year 48 “Beyond Scare Quotes: Rethinking Words and Things in the Study of Ancient ‘Judaism’ and ‘Christianity’” (2010–2011)
  
• Year 49 “Memory and Forgetting” (2011–2012)
  
• Year 50 “PSCO at Fifty: Christian Origins in Retrospect and Prospect” (2012–2013)
  
• Year 51 “Rethinking Josephus’ Antiquities” (2013–2014)
  
• Year 52 “Formative Figures and Paths Not Taken: The Study of Ancient Judaism and Christianity between History and Historiography” (2014–2015)
  
• Year 53 “Beyond ‘Greco-Roman Context’: Persian & Other Perspectives on Judaism & Christianity” (2015–2016)
  
• Year 54 “Writing the Biblical Past” (2016–2017)
  
• Year 55 “What Did Ancient Jews Know? Exploring the Place of Scientific Knowledge in the World of Ancient Judaism” (2017–2018)
  
• Year 56 “Beyond Patristics: North Africa in the First Millennium” (2018–2019)
  
• Year 57 “Looking at Home: Domestic Space and Early Christianity” (2019–2020)
  
• Year 58 “Popular Piety in Late Antiquity” (2020–2021)
  

07 August 2020
jct