OLD TESTAMENT/HEBREW BIBLE SEMINAR
2017-2018 Michaelmas Term

Convener: Prof Hindy Najman (Oriel)
Location: Harris Seminar Room, Oriel College at 2:30–4.00 p.m.* followed by tea
Consult the Oriel College Porter’s Lodge for the 4-digit passcode and enter by gate

Please note that in week 3 we will not meet on Monday but on Wednesday from 2.30-4.00 pm in the Faculty of Divinity in Cambridge.

We know that some of you will be travelling by car and would happy to offer a seat to one or more of their colleagues. To help us coordinate this, could you please email arjen.bakker@oriel.ox.ac.uk:
a. you are travelling to Cambridge by car and have free seats (please let us know how many seats)
b. you want to come to Cambridge and would like to either drive with someone or travel by bus

We will try to coordinate this and assign people to available seats in cars. If there are more people than free seats, we will go with a separate group by bus and we will arrange a meeting time and place on Wednesday morning, and travel back to Oxford together in the evening.

Please note that the costs for petrol and bus tickets can be reimbursed by us. For this purpose it will be very important that you keep your receipts.

We will follow up soon and make sure that the drivers receive a map and directions.

Week 1: Mon 9 October – Induction (all are welcome)* *Light lunch is served at 1.30 p.m.
Chair: Hindy Najman (Oriel). For all those in attendance, faculty and students will briefly introduce their work to our subject group.

Weeks 2–5: Joint Seminar with Cambridge on “Translation and Interpretation”
Co-Organizers: James Aitken (Cambridge) and Hindy Najman (Oriel)
Weeks 3 and 5 in Cambridge: Runcie Room, Faculty of Divinity, West Road. CB3 9BS. A map and directions can be found on the faculty’s HB/OT website.

Week 2: Mon 16 October (in Oxford)* *Subject Group meeting will take place at 1.15–2.15 p.m. in Prof Najman’s office, Oriel College 5.4
Chair: James Aitken (Cambridge)
Speakers: Hindy Najman (Oriel) and Arjen Bakker (Oriel) – Conceptual Translation and Transfer of Culture

Week 3: Wed 25 October (in Cambridge)
Chair: James Aitken (Cambridge)
Speaker: Jonathan Stökl (King’s College London) – Catching an Allusion in a Net: Thoughts on the “Translation” of Mesopotamian Motifs, Allusions and Tradition History

Week 4: Mon 30 October (in Oxford)
Chair: Alison Salvesen (Mansfield)
Speakers: Jan Joosten (Christ Church) and Jelle Verburg (St John’s) – Acculturation and Identity: Lexical Choice in the Septuagint

Week 5.1: Wed 8 November (in Cambridge)
Chair: Hindy Najman (Oriel)
Speakers: Marieke Dhont (Metz) and James Aitken (Cambridge) – Cultural Assumptions of the Septuagint Translation
Please note that there are two sessions in week 5 and none in week 7 due to SBL

Week 5.2: Thu 9 November – Visit to Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum* *Meet at entrance of the Ashmolean at 10 a.m.
Chair: Jaś Elsner (Corpus Christi)
10 a.m. viewing exhibition “Imagining the Divine”, see: empiresoffaith.com/exhibition
11.00-13.00 presentation and discussion in Headley lecture theatre

Week 6: Mon 13 November – Student Presentations (all are welcome)* *This session will run 2.30-4.30, tea served at 4.30
Chair: Hindy Najman (Oriel)
Judith Clarke (Oriel) – The Liturgical Calendar at Qumran
Rory Turnbull (Oriel) – Life as the Reward for Righteousness in Early Jewish Texts
James Nati (Yale) – Non-Biblical Texts in Textual Criticism: The Case of Serekh ha-Yahad
Itai Kagan (Hebrew University) – The Origin of the Legal Formulae in Jubilees’ Festivals

Week 8: Mon 27 November
Chair: Jan Joosten (Christ Church)
Stephanie Dalley (Oxford) – Kedor-laomer and Genesis 14: 1-16: Some Possible New Light on an Old Problem

2018 Hillary Term

Convener: Prof Hindy Najman (Oriel)
Location: Harris Seminar Room, Oriel College at 2:30–4.00 p.m.* followed by tea
Consult the Oriel College Porter’s Lodge for the 4-digit passcode and enter by gate

“Old Wine in New Bottles”
Thematic Seminar on Ritual and Innovation

Week 1: Mon 15 January
Introduction to the theme: Sondra Hausner (St Peter’s), Nathan MacDonald (Cambridge), and Hindy Najman (Oriel)
Nathan MacDonald (Cambridge) – Why Do Rituals Change? Towards a Typology of Ritual Change in Early Judaism

Week 2: Mon 22 January*
Judith Newman (Toronto) – How to Invent a Ritual in Early Judaism in Seven Easy
Steps *6.30 OT/HB Dinner: after the OT/HB seminar there will be drinks and dinner in Oriel College (reception in the large SCR followed by dinner in Champneys Room)

Week 3: Mon 29 January
Martti Nissinen (Helsinki) – Why Prophecy Is (Not) Magic?
Please note that in week 4 there is a special OUP session on Wednesday

Week 4: Wed 7 February – Graduate Professionalization Session
Tom Perridge (editor for OUP) – How to get Your Book Published?

Week 5: Mon 12 February
Jenni Williams (Wycliffe Hall) – A Surprising Absence? Adoption in the Hebrew Bible

Week 6: Mon 19 February – Student Presentations
Elizabeth Stell (Oriel) – TBD
Susannah Rees (Oriel) – TBD
Mark Lester (Yale) – Deuteronomy and the Transmission of Pentateuchal Traditions

Week 7: Mon 26 February
Naphtali Meshel (Princeton) – The Foundations of Logic and Ritual Thinking in Leviticus

Week 8: Mon 5 March
Jacqueline Vayntrub (Brandeis) – Like Father, Like Son? Theorizing Transmission in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Literature

2018 Trinity Term

Convener: Prof Hindy Najman (Oriel)
Monday at 2:30–4.00 p.m.* followed by tea
Location: Harris Seminar Room, Oriel College
Consult the Oriel College Porter’s Lodge for the 4-digit passcode and enter by gate

Week 1: 23 April
Chair: Hindy Najman (Oriel)
Speaker: Hugh Williamson (Christ Church) – Decoding Isaiah 13

Week 2: 30 April
Chair: Jan Joosten (Christ Church)
Speaker: John Screnock (Oriental Studies) – Reading with the Scribes: Psalm 104 through the Lens of Textual Criticism

Week 3: 7 May
Chair: Hindy Najman (Oriel)
Speaker: Megan Daffern (Jesus) – The Psalms: Just Prayer?

Week 4: 14 May
Chair: Hindy Najman (Oriel)
Speaker: Hywel Clifford (Ripon College Cuddesdon) – The Shema in its Ancient Near Eastern Setting

Week 5: 21 May
Chair: Benjamin Johnson (Wycliffe Hall)
Speaker: John Day (Lady Margaret Hall) – “So God created humanity in his own image” (Genesis 1:27). What did the text originally mean and what have theologians and exegetes thought it meant?

Week 6: 28 May
Chair: Susan Gillingham (Worcester)
Speaker: Katherine Dell (Cambridge) – Wisdom in Exile in Babylon

Week 7: 4 June – daylong workshop on Wisdom and Ethics* *Begins at 9.00 a.m. and ends at 6.30 p.m. followed by drinks (see separate schedule)
Conveners: John Barton (Oriel) and Hindy Najman (Oriel)
Speakers: John Barton (Oriel); Jan Joosten (Christ Church); Laura Quick (Princeton); Hywel Clifford (Ripon College Cuddesdon); Elisa Uusimäki (Helsinki); Hans Decker (Oriel); Arjen Bakker (Oriel); Mark Edwards (Christ Church); Konrad Schmid (Zurich)
Respondents: John Jarick (Regent’s Park); Benjamin Wright (Lehigh University); Martin Goodman (Wolfson); Judith Clark (Oriel); Rory Turnbull (Oriel); Markus Bockmuehl (Keble); Olivia Stewart Lester (Theology and Religion); Hindy Najman (Oriel)

Week 8: 11 June
Chair: Hindy Najman (Oriel)
Speaker: David Lambert (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) – Ancient Israel and the Philology of the Self