[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

orion DSS conference in Edinburgh

The following has been cross-posted from Ioudaios with the sender's
permission.

Avital Pinnick
list moderator
Orion

From: "Professor L.W. Hurtado" <hurtadol@div.ed.ac.uk>

I append below an announcement of the special conference on the 
Qumran scrolls we will hold here next year.  N.B. the call for short 
papers at the end of the announcement.


===An International Conference on

The Dead Sea Scrolls in their Historical Context

5-6 May 1998
New College, Faculty of Divinity,
University of Edinburgh


Organizers: 
Dr. Timothy H. Lim, Prof. Larry Hurtado and Prof. A. Graeme Auld
Conference Executive: Dr. Alison Jack

Description:

The primary aim of this conference is to situate the Dead Sea Scrolls
within 
the context of Judaism in the Second Temple period.  Most scholars,
though 
certainly not all, believe that the Qumran community who owned these
scrolls 
are to be identified with the Essene sect known from the classical 
sources--primarily Philo, Pliny and Josephus.  If so, are the Dead Sea 
Scrolls marginal and the community standing behind them peripheral to
Judaism 
that existed in the centuries around the turning of the era?  Phrased 
differently, is the Qumran community simply one of several fringe
sectarian 
groups, about whom we now happen to know more than we do about others? 
Is 
our picture of nascent Judaism skewed as a result of their chance
discovery 
and intensive research into the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Formulating the question this way also begs the question of what we know
in 
the first place about the religious practices and theology of the
ordinary 
Jew in Second Temple Judaism.  Was the sacrificial system of the
Jerusalem 
cultus 'normative' or 'common'?  This Conference aims to draw leading 
scholars from various disciplines--Qumran specialists, biblical
scholars, 
historians, and lawyers--together to discuss the fours areas of
sectarianism, 
biblical texts, halakhot, and messianism.

Speakers Include:

E. P. Sanders, Eugene C. Ulrich, Lawrence H. Schiffman, John J. Collins, 
Philip R. Davies, Philip S. Alexander, Timothy H. Lim, Julio 
Trebolle-Barrera, James C. VanderKam, George J. Brooke and Bernard
Jackson

Gunning Lectures:

Geza Vermes, Professor Emeritus of the University of Oxford, will be
giving 
four public lectures on "The Dead Sea Scrolls and Jesus the Jew" in the 
Summer Term of 1998 as Gunning Lecturer at the Faculty of Divinity of
the 
University of Edinburgh and his lectures will be coordinated with the 
conference.

 Call for Short Papers:

Proposals for short papers (ca. 20-25 minutes) are invited for
submission to 
the organizing committee.  Please send a 500 word proposal to: Dr.
Timothy H. 
Lim, Dept. of Hebrew & Old Testament Studies, Mound Place, Edinburgh EH1
2LX, 
Scotland; tel. 0131-650-8919; fax: 0131-650-6579; email: limt@ed.ac.uk.


============================================================================

L. W. Hurtado
University of Edinburgh,
New College
Mound Place 
Edinburgh, Scotland EH1 2LX
Phone: 0131-650-8920
Fax: 0131-650-6579
E-mail:  L.Hurtado@ed.ac.uk