18 June, 2024
We are deeply honoured to welcome Professor AJ Berkovitz, Assistant Professor of Ancient Judaism at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, to lead the Psalms in Interfaith Contexts Reading Group session.
Here are the details of this fascinating event.
Topic: Beyond Exegesis: The Psalm Cultures of Ancient Jews and Early Christians
Abstract: How did the inhabitants of the ancient world interact with their sacred literature? Scholars of biblical reception tend to answer this question by focusing on exegesis, how society’s elites rendered a text meaningful and impactful. The history of book of Psalms offers another vista. This talk adopts the methodological imperatives of cultural history, book history, and the history of reading to survey some of the textual as well as material evidence for the reception of the Psalms in antiquity and to reframe aspects of the study of late ancient Judaism and early Christianity. It will explore how the scroll and codex shaped Jewish and Christian material reception and imagination of the Psalms. And it will also suggest a model for Jewish-Christian interaction that moves beyond learned scriptural polemic. As a whole, the talk synthesizes several strands of argument found in Prof Berkovitz’s recently published book, A Life of Psalms in Jewish Late Antiquity.
Speaker: Professor AJ Berkovitz, Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, USA
Speaker’s biography: Professor AJ Berkovitz is a scholar of Antiquity who writes about Jewish texts, traditions, and history from the formation of the Hebrew Bible until the rise of Islam. He received his Ph.D. in Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity from Princeton University. His first book, A Life of Psalms in Jewish Late Antiquity (University of Pennsylvania, 2023) received a Jordan Schnitzer First Book Publication Award from the Association for Jewish Studies. He is the co-editor of Rethinking ‘Authority’ in Late Antiquity: Authorship, Law, and Transmission in Jewish and Christian Tradition (Routledge, 2018) and the author of twenty academic publications as well as fifteen public-facing essays. His recent article in the AJS Review, “Psalm 45 Between Abraham and Jesus: A Palestinian Rabbinic Polemic and its Shelf Life,” was awarded the 2021 CRINT Prize Essay. He was a Starr Fellow at Harvard University and currently teaches at HUC-JIR.
Chair: Professor Anna Sapir Abulafia FBA, Professor Emerita of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford
Time: 18:00-19:00 BST | 19:00-20:00 CEST | 10:00-11:00 PDT | 13:00-14:00 EDT
Venue: Online
If you would like to join the Psalms in Interfaith Contexts Reading Group, please sign up here.
Recordings of Past Sessions
Related Sessions
- The Seven Penitential Psalms in the Allegorist’s Hands
- Was Genesis 1 Dependent on Psalm 104?
- Beyond Exegesis: The Psalm Cultures of Ancient Jews and Early Christians
- Psalm 40 and Messiness of Prayer
- Psalm 109: The Prayer No One Wants
- Psalmody as an Alternative to Theodicy
- Psalm 44 and the Book of Job: God on Trial
- Exile and Restoration in the Psalms
- ‘Deep cries unto deep’: Julian of Norwich and Psalm 42
- Ancient Versions of Psalms in Dialogue: Psalms 49 and 104
- Awake, My Soul! Psalms: 44; 57; 133; 143
- Psalm 106: Fall of Jerusalem and Lamentations Ch. 3
- Psalm 37:25, Innocent Suffering, and Divine Recompense
- Spurring Colonialism and Slavery: Protestants and Catholics United in their Use of Psalm 132
- Midrash Tehillim on Psalm 24
- Psalm 19: Muslim Reflections on Creation
- Psalm 46: Singing in Hope and Defiance
- When Music Meets Psalms: Psalm 130
- Psalm 131: How I Weaned Myself from the Breast of God
- Psalm 132: A Song of Ascents
- Psalm 88: ‘Fists Flailing at the Gates of Heaven’
- Psalm 82: Demanding Justice
- Psalm 51: Contemporary Multifaith Interpretations
- Comparative Reading of Psalms and Abrahams’ Prayers in the Quran
- Psalm 33: Mystical Reading
- Psalm 139
- Psalm 1: Inaugural Session by Revd Dr John Goldingay
