Recent series of the Ehrhardt Seminar
The weekly Ehrhardt Biblical Studies research seminar is the centre of Biblical Studies life at Manchester. It has over fifty participating faculty, postgraduates and other scholars living around Manchester, with currently an average weekly attendance of over thirty. Each week sees the presentation of a paper, lively discussion and, the essential conclusion, a cup of tea. Papers are presented by teaching faculty members, research fellows, visiting scholars from around the world and, on one occasion during their study, by each PhD student. A core element of the MA Biblical Studies programme is learning to evaluate research work. This is carried out by small-group discussion of the presentation given in the previous week's seminar.
2011-12 Series
September 29th - George Brooke, Jacob and His House in the Scrolls from Qumran
October 6th - Michael Flowers, Messianism in Q
October 13th - Benjamin Schliesser (University of Zurich), A “Third View” on the Pistis Christou Question
October 20th - 51st Manson Memorial Lecture - Loveday Alexander, Paul the Apostle: Leadership and Authority in the Pauline Churches
October 27th - Gerald Downing, Passions, Human and Divine. An Exercise in Cultural Comparison
October 24th-27th - Didsbury Lecture Week (evenings at the Nazarene Theological College) - Nigel Biggar (University of Oxford), Between Tribe and Cosmopolis: A Theology of the Nation
November 10th - Dorothy Peters (Trinity Western University), The Sword and Its Substitutes: Activism and Pacifism in the Dead Sea Scrolls
4 pm Daniel Falk (University of Oregon) (CJS Seminar)
Material Aspects of Prayer in the Dead Sea Scrolls
7 pm Esther Eshel (Bar Ilan University) (AIAS Lecture)
Old and New Inscriptions Found in Herodium
November 17th - Greg Forster, Dating the Gospels: An Heretical Angle
November 24th - Sarah Whittle, Revisiting “The Offering of the Gentiles” (Rom 15:16): The Isaianic Gathering, the Jerusalem Collection, or the Sacrificed Bodies of Paul’s Converts?
December 1st - Peter Oakes, A House Church Reading of Galatians
December 8th - Paul Middleton (University of Chester), Violence and Martyrdom in the Apocalypse
December 15th - Walter Houston, Between Salem and Mt Gerizim: the Creation of the Torah Revisted
2010-11 Series
Thursday 3rd February - Philip Alexander: 'Does the Bible Recognize a Doctrine of creatio ex nihilo?'.
Thursday 10th February - Ariel Feldman: 'Crossing the Jordan: Joshua 3-6 in the Apocryphon of Joshuab (4Q379)'.
Thursday 17th February - Anneli Aejmelaeus (Helsinki): 'What Rahlfs Could not Know: 1 Samuel 14:4-5 in the Old Greek'.
4 PM Hanne von Weissenberg (Helsinki): 'The Bible at Qumran: The Case of the Minor Prophets'.
Thursday 24th February - John Moles (Newcastle): 'Jesus the Healer in the Gospels and Acts'.
Thursday 3rd March - Yuri Stoyanov (London): 'Dualism(s) in The Book of the Secrets of Enoch (2 Enoch) against the Background of the Enochic Tradition'.
Thursday 10th March - Postgraduate seminar day in Manchester with Durham and Sheffield.
This day will run from 10.30 until 4.30 (sessions 11-1 and 2-4) in the Sackville Building H008, H010 and G041. More details shortly before the event with book of abstracts: OT/Hebrew Bible and NT papers.
Thursday 17th March - Armin Lange (Vienna) and Zlatko Plese (Chapel Hill/Zagreb): 'The Derveni Papyrus and Second Temple Jewish Bible Commentary: a Comparison'.
Thursday 24th March - Sandra Jacobs: 'Neo-Babylonian and Priestly Consecration: Linguistic and Bodily Inscriptions'.
Thursday 31st March - Dominik Markl (London): 'The Making of the Covenant of Moab: Speech acts and reader-oriented rhetoric in Deuteronomy 29-30'.
Thursday 7th April - Todd Klutz: 'Justin's Baruch'.
Thursday 5th May - Dwight Swanson: Title TBC.
Thursday 6th May - Ariel Feldman: 'Apocryphon of Joshua or Joshua Apocrypha? Date, Authorship, and Provenance of the Scrolls 4Q123, 4Q378-379, 4Q522, and 5Q9'.
Thursday 12th May - 2011: Grand KJV 400th Celebration at JRULM Deansgate and Chethams incl. Naomi Tadmor (Lancaster) and Scott Mandelbrote (Cambridge)
June 9th-10th - Joint Seminar with Universities of Lausanne, Geneva and Sheffield The Letter to the Hebrews
2009-10 Series
Oct 1 David Firth (Cliff College): 'When Samuel met Esther: Focalisation,
Intertextuality and Theology'
Oct 8 Adrian Curtis: 'Ilimilku of Ugarit, Copyist or Creator?'
Oct 15 Gerald Downing: 'Ambiguity, Ancient Semantics, and Faith'
Oct 22 Roger Tomes: 'Ambrose of Milan: Apology for David'
Oct 29 David Horrell (Exeter): Manson Memorial Lecture
Nov 5 Reading Week: No Meeting
Nov 12 John Moles: 'What's in a name? "Christians" and "Chrestians" in the First Century'
Nov 19 Phil Goodwin: 'The Lost Art of Translation'
Nov 26 Lyubov Osinkina: 'The Translation and Reception of the book of Ecclesiastes into Church Slavonic' (tbc)
Dec 3 Peter Oakes: 'Contextual Study of Galatians'
Dec 10 James Crossley: title tbc
Dec 17 Michael Tait: 'Angels, Moses, Melchizedek, Aaron, Jesus: How many priests are there in the Letter to the Hebrews?'
2008-9 Series
Oct 2 Mikael Winninge (Umeå): Historiography, Re-Interpretation and Identity: The Case of Luke-Acts and the Issue of Intertextuality
Oct 9 Charlotte Hempel (Birmingham): The Teaching on the Two Spirits and the Literary History of the Community Rule
Oct 16 David Firth: Narrative Voice and Chronology in the Books of Samuel
Oct 23 Michael Knibb (London): Reflections on the Status of the Early Enochic Writings
Oct 30 William Horbury (Cambridge) Manson Memorial Lecture: St Paul and Josephus
Nov 13 Gerald Downing: Imitation, Emulation: Luke and Josephus
Nov 20 Maria Haralambakis: Positioning Place in the Narrative of the Testament of Job
Nov 27 Dwight Swanson: The Text of Isaiah at Qumran
Dec 4 Peter Machinist (Cambridge, Mass.): 'Ah, Assyria...' (Isa 10: 5ff.). Isaiah's Assyrian Polemic Revisited
Dec 11 Philip Davies (Sheffield): Canon at Qumran?
Dec 18 Roger Tomes: The Education of Ben Sira
Feb. 5th Walter Houston: 'Exit the Oppressed Peasant? Rethinking the Background of Social Criticism in the Prophets'
Feb 12th Peter Oakes: 'Reading Romans in Pompeii'
Feb 19th Philip Alexander: '"In the beginning": Rabbinic and Patristic Exegesis of Genesis 1:1'.
Feb 26th Lara Guglielmo: 'A Physical Reconstruction of the Halakhic Section of 4Q266 Witness.'
March 5th Jack McKelvey: 'The Epistle to the Hebrews: Perfection'
March 12th Tamlin Lizius: 'Jewish Burial Customs from Solomon to Jesus: some reflections on concepts of Ancient Israelite history.'
March 19th Todd Klutz: 'Translation, Discourse, and Textual Identity in PGM XIII.1-734'
March 26th Sarah Whittle: 'The Concept of Covenant Renewal in Paul's Letter to the Romans'
April 23rd Adelina Angusheva-Tihanov
April 30th Mary Mills (Liverpool Hope University): 'Narrated Spaces: Biblical Narratives. An application to the Book of Joel'
May 7th Cynthia Crewe: 'Plant motifs on Jewish ossuaries and sarcophagi in Palestine in the late Second Temple period: their identification, sociology and significance'
May 14th Sherman Lecture Feedback Session (Prof. S. Gilman)
2007-8 Series
Sept 27 George Brooke: Canonical Processes in the Light of Qumran Scrolls
Oct 4 Gerald Downing: God with Everything: Discourse of the Divine in and around the First Christian Century
Oct 11 Hanan Eshel (Bar Ilan): 60 Years of Archaeological Discoveries in the Judean Desert, and Esther Eshel (Jerusalem): Intertextuality of 2nd Temple Texts Based on Genesis
Oct 18 Philip Alexander: How much Hebrew did the King James Translators Know? Christian Hebraism in England in the 16th and 17th Centuries
Oct 25 Christopher Rowland (Oxford), Manson Memorial Lecture: Reading the Bible in its Infernal or Diabolical Sense: William Blake 250 Years On (with special exhibition of Blake at the Whitworth)
Nov 8 Jack McKelvey: The Temple in the Epistle to the Hebrews: Is It There?
Nov 15 David Firth: David and Uriah (With an Occasional Appearance by Uriah's Wife): Reading and Re-Reading 2 Samuel 11
Nov 20 David Price (Urbana, Illinois): Crawling to Maturity: The King James Version and the English Renaissance Bible
Nov 22 David Price (Urbana, Illinois): Johannes Reuchlin and the Controversy over Jewish Books in the Early Sixteenth Century
Nov 29 Glen Lund (Perth): John's Ethical Heritage: Continuity with Torah?
Dec 6 Peter Oakes: Pompeii and the Social Situation of the Early Christians
Dec 13 Todd Klutz: Rethinking Gnosticism