Topic for the Year 2002-2003:
"Parabiblical Literature"
Co-chaired by Robert A. Kraft (University of Pennsylvania) and
Annette Yoshiko Reed (Princeton University)
For 2002-2003, the PSCO hopes to generate an ongoing conversation
involving scholars of early Christianity, scholars of early Judaism, and
other students of late antiquity in an examination of the role of
"parabiblical" literatures in antiquity, and especially in early Judaism
and Christianity.
The term "parabiblical" itself is of recent coinage, and is itself
problematic. It is used to designate at least two distinguishable aspects
of authoritative literature, (1) material that is selfconsciously
derivitive from existing authoritative "biblical/scriptural" models, and
(2) material that itself existed alongside of or even prior to what
became "biblical/scriptural" and may itself have influenced the latter
developments. One of the tasks of the seminar will be to attempt to
provide clearer terminology for dealing with these phenomena and criteria
for distinguishing them. The Religious Studies 735 advanced workgroup at
Penn will be exploring the same issues during the year and is collecting
relevant materials on its
web page.
This topic is especially appropriate in 2002-2003, which has been
designated by our primary sponsor,
the Penn Humanities Forum, as "The Year
of the Book." We expect to be exploring various
attitudes to special books and their impacts in the development of our
western religious traditions.
|