Rabbinic Instruction in Context: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Transmission of
Religious Knowledge and Praxis in Antiquity and Late Antiquity

Collaborative Research Centre 1136 "Education and Religion"
In cooperation with the European Association for Jewish Studies
(EAJS Conference Grant Programme in European Jewish Studies 2017/18)

Sept. 18th-19th 2017
Tagungszentrum Alte Mensa (Taberna), Wilhelmsplatz 3, 37075 Göttingen

Concept and organization: Dr. Elisabetta Abate (Jewish Studies)

The conference revolves around religious education in the (late) ancient Mediterranean from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, while focusing on the role of Judaism and on Jewish Studies. In doing so, it shall examine aspects of the intra- and intercultural transmission of religious knowledge and praxis, as they emerge from Jewish, pagan, Christian, and Islamic literary evidence. Each of the main papers, followed by a response, shall offer a comparative analysis of selected relevant texts, drawn from classical Rabbinic literature on the one hand, and from one of the aforementioned religious traditions, on the other. Through the comparative/contrastive textual reading of the literary evidence, the event shall highlight some current ways of interdisciplinary inquiry into Rabbinic Judaism and related traditions, and, at the same time, explore new paths of interdisciplinary research into religious education in the orbis mediterraneus and its environment in (late) antiquity.
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