Books by Lutz Doering
This volume offers contributions to two basic questions of the study of the Tosefta: How can we d... more This volume offers contributions to two basic questions of the study of the Tosefta: How can we describe the character and relationship of the Tosefta manuscripts? And how does the Tosefta relate to other rabbinic traditions and texts? It also sheds light on other topics of Tosefta research: "magic", emotions, and gender. The volume, based on two international colloquia in Munster in 2016 and 2017, marks the beginning of a new phase in the study of Tosefta, encouraging an international conversation between scholars on method and contents.
The study of ancient Judaism has enjoyed a steep rise in interest and publications in recent deca... more The study of ancient Judaism has enjoyed a steep rise in interest and publications in recent decades. However, much of this study has focused on the ideas and beliefs represented in ancient texts, with only limited study regarding the daily lives and material culture of Jewish individuals and their communities. The nascent institution of the synagogue formed an increasingly important venue for communal gathering and daily or weekly practice. This collection of essays is intended to bring together a broad spectrum of new archaeological and textual data with various emergent theories and interpretive methods in order to address the need to understand the place of the synagogue in the daily and weekly procedures, community frameworks, and theological structures in which Judaeans, Galileans, and Jewish people in the Diaspora lived and gathered. The interdisciplinary studies will be of great significance for anyone studying ancient Jewish belief, practice, and community formation.
This is the first complete translation of the Tosefta tractate Shabbat into German, with brief in... more This is the first complete translation of the Tosefta tractate Shabbat into German, with brief introduction and detailed commentary by annotation, published by W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, in March 2019. – Apart from the title page, three specimens are made available here: the table of contents, the preface, and a reading sample.
In the ancient world, letter-writing not only forged connections between individuals, but also he... more In the ancient world, letter-writing not only forged connections between individuals, but also helped to construct and cultivate group-identities and communities. This volume explores the interrelation of epistolary communication and socio-political practice across four key cultural configurations: Greece, Rome, Judaism, and Christianity.
• Incorporates a range of original case studies, offering new insights into the socio-political dimensions of letter-writing in the ancient world across key cultural contexts
• Utilizes a multi-disciplinary approach to ancient epistolography, drawing on Jewish and Biblical studies, classics, and ancient history, and combining both literary and historical perspectives on this vital aspect of antiquity
Special issue “Jews and Drama,” guest-edited by Lutz Doering and Sandra Gambetti
Time has always held a fascination for human beings, who have attempted to relate to it and to ma... more Time has always held a fascination for human beings, who have attempted to relate to it and to make sense of it, constructing and deconstructing it through its various prisms, since time cannot be experienced in an unmediated way. This book answers the needs of a growing community of scholars and readers who are interested in this interaction. It offers a series of innovative studies by both senior and younger experts on various aspects of the construction of time in antiquity. Some articles in this book contain visual material published for the first time, while other studies update the field with new theories or apply new approaches to relevant sources. Within the study of antiquity, the book covers the disciplines of Classics and Ancient History, Assyriology, Egyptology, Ancient Judaism, and Early Christianity, with thematic contributions on rituals, festivals, astronomy, calendars, medicine, art, and narrative.
Contents:
1. Introduction Lutz Doering and Jonathan Ben-Dov
2 Time and natural law in Jewish-Hellenistic writings Jonathan Ben-Dov
3. Calendars, politics, and power relations in the Roman Empire Sacha Stern
4. Doubling religion in the Augustan Age: shaping time for an empire Jörg Rüpke
5. Real and constructed time in Babylonian astral medicine John Steele
6. The intellectual background of the Antikythera mechanism Robert Hannah
7. Divine figurations of time in Ancient Egypt Alexandra von Lieven
8. The moon and the power of time reckoning in Ancient Mesopotamia Lorenzo Verderame
9. Toward a phenomenology of time in ancient Greek art SeungJung Kim
10. Women's bodies as metaphors for time in biblical, second temple, and rabbinic literature Sarit Kattan Gribetz
11. The beginning of sabbath and festivals in ancient Jewish sources Lutz Doering
12. Seasoning the bible and biblifying time through fixed liturgical reading systems (lectionaries) Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra
13. The Roman ember days of September and the Jewish New Year Robert Hayward
14. Celebrations and the abstention from celebrations of sacred time in Early Christianity Clemens Leonhard.
Ancient Jewish letter writing is a neglected topic of research. Lutz Doering’s new monograph seek... more Ancient Jewish letter writing is a neglected topic of research. Lutz Doering’s new monograph seeks to redress this situation. The author pursues two major tasks: first, to provide a comprehensive discussion of Jewish letter writing in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman periods and, second, to assess the importance of ancient Jewish letter writing for the emergence and early development of Christian epistolography. Although individual groups of Jewish letters have been studied before, the present monograph is the first one to look at Jewish letters comprehensively across the languages in which they were written and/or handed down (chiefly Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek). It operates with a broad concept of "letter” and deals with documentary as well as literary and embedded letters. The author highlights cross-linguistic developments, such as the influence of the Greek epistolary form on Aramaic and Hebrew letters or the non-idiomatic retention of Semitic "peace” greetings in some letters translated into Greek, which allowed for these greetings to be charged with new meaning. Doering argues that such processes were also important for early Christian epistolography. Thus, Paul engaged creatively with Jewish epistolary formulae. Frequent address of communities rather than individuals and the quasi-official setting of many Jewish letters would have provided relevant models when Paul developed his own epistolary praxis. In addition, the author shows that the concept of communication with the "Diaspora”, in both halakhic-administrative and prophetic-apocalyptic Jewish letters, is adapted by a number of early Christian letters, such as 1 Peter, James, Acts 15:23-29, and 1 Clement . Ancient Jewish and early Christian letters also share a concern with group identity and cohesion that is often supported by salvation-historical motifs. In sum, Lutz Doering addresses the previously under-researched text-pragmatic similarities between Jewish and Christian letters.
Conference Organization by Lutz Doering
A conference of the Cluster of Excellence Religion and Politics, University of Münster, in cooper... more A conference of the Cluster of Excellence Religion and Politics, University of Münster, in cooperation with the School of Jewish Studies and Archaeology, Tel Aviv University, 23–25 September 2024.
Registration for in-person or Zoom participation until 13 September (see flyer).
This is the updated list of the sessions of the Hellenistic Judaism Section at the 2019 SBL Annua... more This is the updated list of the sessions of the Hellenistic Judaism Section at the 2019 SBL Annual Meeting at San Diego. Welcome to our sessions!
(Alexander von) Humboldt Tagung at WWU Münster, Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum. Consideration... more (Alexander von) Humboldt Tagung at WWU Münster, Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum. Considerations of Philo's philosophical library (Gregory Sterling), the interrelation of theology and philosophy (Rainer Hirsch-Luipold), the Omnis probus (Maren Niehoff, Troels Engberg-Pedersen), Philo and Scepticism (Carlos Lévy, Mauro Bonazzi), and Philo's Philosophy of Language (Michael Cover). Responses by David Runia and Lutz Doering.
The Call for Papers is open between 19 Dec 2018 and 6 Mar 2019.
This is the list of sessions offered by the Hellenistic Judaism section at the SBL Denver Annual ... more This is the list of sessions offered by the Hellenistic Judaism section at the SBL Denver Annual Meeting
Papers by Lutz Doering
Brief und Bildung: Von der Antike bis zur Moderne, eds. E.-M. Becker and A. Fürst; Epistula 1; Berlin., 2024
This article discusses the transmission of knowledge in ancient Jewish letters using the examples... more This article discusses the transmission of knowledge in ancient Jewish letters using the examples of the two introductory letters of Second Maccabees (2 Macc 1:1-2:18), the Letter of Baruch (2 Bar 78-86) and the letters of Rn Gamaliel to distant areas of the Land of Israel and the Diaspora (tSan 2:6).
NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion, 2024
This is the pre-print version of Lutz Doering, “Review Essay: The Literature of the Sages”, NTT J... more This is the pre-print version of Lutz Doering, “Review Essay: The Literature of the Sages”, NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion 78 (2024): 169–181. This essay reviews the 2022 volume, The Literature of the Sages: A Re-visioning, edited by Christine Hayes in the series Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum (CRINT).
Parting of the Ways: The Variegated Ways of Separations between Jews and Christians, 2024
The article briefly reviews some aspects of the literary structure and source-critical questions ... more The article briefly reviews some aspects of the literary structure and source-critical questions of the Didache, comments on its genre, and discusses in detail the two selected topics of fasting and prayer in Did. 8.1–3, with a view to what the Didache might contribute to the issue of the so-called “Parting of the Ways”. It is argued that the Didache, directed at a Christ-believing group composed of both Jews and gentiles, attempts to establish boundaries vis-à-vis a specific group of Jews polemically called “hypocrites” which bears some relation with pre-70 CE Pharisees, and that this conversely shows that “the ways” between the Didache group “and Judaism” have not fully parted.
The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity, 2024
The chapter reviews the evidence of Jewish letters and letter writing in Tannaitic texts, where i... more The chapter reviews the evidence of Jewish letters and letter writing in Tannaitic texts, where it is sparse, and Amoraic texts, where it becomes more frequent; specific groups of letters are those ascribed to the Patriarch, those between rabbinic colleagues, mostly in regards to halakhic topics, and those addressed by “the people” of a given place to rabbis, again concerning halakhic questions, which can be considered a forerunner of the responsa literature from the Gaonic period onwards. In addition, the chapter discusses the evidence of extant Jewish documentary letters in Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew from Late Antiquity (from ca. the fourth century C.E.). Finally, the chapter briefly considers the debated question of potential Jewish literary letters transmitted in Latin (Letter of Mordecai to Alexander, Epistola Anne ad Senecam).
William M. Schniedewind, Jason M. Zurawski, and Gabriele Boccaccini (eds.), Torah: Functions, Meanings, and Diverse Manifestations in Early Judaism and Christianity. EJL 56; Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2022
This article charts the status, notion, and development of Torah and Jewish law (“halakah”) throu... more This article charts the status, notion, and development of Torah and Jewish law (“halakah”) throughout the Hellenistic period, both in the Land of Israel and in the Jewish Diaspora, looking for legal concern as well as evidence for the practice of the law. It argues that legal concern did not only arise after the Maccabean period, although it became more detailed from the end of the second century BCE.
K. J. Dell (ed.), The Biblical World, Second Edition. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2022
This chapter provides an overview of the institutions (the Jerusalem Temple, the festival calenda... more This chapter provides an overview of the institutions (the Jerusalem Temple, the festival calendar, synagogues, houses and households), theological concepts (belief in one God, restoration and eschatology, election and covenant), the importance of Jewish law (Torah and halakhah, as well as elite groups (“sects”: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, the “New Covenant”, the Yahad) and popular movements (anti-Roman rebels, messiah pretenders and sign prophets) in the Judaism around the turn of the era. – Published as Chapter Thirty-Seven in K. J. Dell (ed.), The Biblical World, 681–704, with five figures, endnotes instead of footnotes, and bibliography.
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Books by Lutz Doering
• Incorporates a range of original case studies, offering new insights into the socio-political dimensions of letter-writing in the ancient world across key cultural contexts
• Utilizes a multi-disciplinary approach to ancient epistolography, drawing on Jewish and Biblical studies, classics, and ancient history, and combining both literary and historical perspectives on this vital aspect of antiquity
Contents:
1. Introduction Lutz Doering and Jonathan Ben-Dov
2 Time and natural law in Jewish-Hellenistic writings Jonathan Ben-Dov
3. Calendars, politics, and power relations in the Roman Empire Sacha Stern
4. Doubling religion in the Augustan Age: shaping time for an empire Jörg Rüpke
5. Real and constructed time in Babylonian astral medicine John Steele
6. The intellectual background of the Antikythera mechanism Robert Hannah
7. Divine figurations of time in Ancient Egypt Alexandra von Lieven
8. The moon and the power of time reckoning in Ancient Mesopotamia Lorenzo Verderame
9. Toward a phenomenology of time in ancient Greek art SeungJung Kim
10. Women's bodies as metaphors for time in biblical, second temple, and rabbinic literature Sarit Kattan Gribetz
11. The beginning of sabbath and festivals in ancient Jewish sources Lutz Doering
12. Seasoning the bible and biblifying time through fixed liturgical reading systems (lectionaries) Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra
13. The Roman ember days of September and the Jewish New Year Robert Hayward
14. Celebrations and the abstention from celebrations of sacred time in Early Christianity Clemens Leonhard.
Conference Organization by Lutz Doering
Registration for in-person or Zoom participation until 13 September (see flyer).
Papers by Lutz Doering
• Incorporates a range of original case studies, offering new insights into the socio-political dimensions of letter-writing in the ancient world across key cultural contexts
• Utilizes a multi-disciplinary approach to ancient epistolography, drawing on Jewish and Biblical studies, classics, and ancient history, and combining both literary and historical perspectives on this vital aspect of antiquity
Contents:
1. Introduction Lutz Doering and Jonathan Ben-Dov
2 Time and natural law in Jewish-Hellenistic writings Jonathan Ben-Dov
3. Calendars, politics, and power relations in the Roman Empire Sacha Stern
4. Doubling religion in the Augustan Age: shaping time for an empire Jörg Rüpke
5. Real and constructed time in Babylonian astral medicine John Steele
6. The intellectual background of the Antikythera mechanism Robert Hannah
7. Divine figurations of time in Ancient Egypt Alexandra von Lieven
8. The moon and the power of time reckoning in Ancient Mesopotamia Lorenzo Verderame
9. Toward a phenomenology of time in ancient Greek art SeungJung Kim
10. Women's bodies as metaphors for time in biblical, second temple, and rabbinic literature Sarit Kattan Gribetz
11. The beginning of sabbath and festivals in ancient Jewish sources Lutz Doering
12. Seasoning the bible and biblifying time through fixed liturgical reading systems (lectionaries) Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra
13. The Roman ember days of September and the Jewish New Year Robert Hayward
14. Celebrations and the abstention from celebrations of sacred time in Early Christianity Clemens Leonhard.
Registration for in-person or Zoom participation until 13 September (see flyer).