Genesis and the PhD
In France, Marie-Édith Garin patiently and skilfully continues her in-depth work on the entire Joseph Cycle
in the Holy Land, Gad Barnea resumes his annotation of the book of Genesis. A key IT actor of our programme in the past years, he earned his PhD in Biblical Studies on the 3rd of March 2022 (KHNUM IS AGAINST US SINCE HANANIAH HAS BEEN IN EGYPT: Yahwistic reform and identity in the prism of Elephantine: 419-399 BCE, prof. Danel Kahn dir.), and is now a Research Fellow at the Department of Biblical Studies of the University of Haifa (Israel).
Gad immediately started fruitful academic research, and will present fresh research at the CBL in Louvain on Qumran and the New Testament in August (“The seven-sealed scroll in practice, legend and theology: from imperial administration and Qumran to the book of Revelation”) as well as in an upcoming conference celebrating in Norway the 75th anniversary of Qumran’s discovery (“Precarious Projections: the case of 4Q550”).
Les routes de l’Exode
Jordi Cervera i Valls (Facultat de Teologia de Catalunya) had integrated in the form of notes the best results of the exploration he carried out with fr. Riccardo Lufrani “on the roads of the Exodus” several years ago (cf. Jordi Cervera Valls and Riccardo Lufrani, El cami d’Ubach, de Montserrat al Sinai cent anys despres, Editorial Mediterrània, SL: 2012); he has just finished the scientific version and we have modestly sponsored a final exploration in Jordan, where together with a Palestinian photographer from Jerusalem (Edmond Mahlouf) and another biblical scholar (Inaki Marro), they have documented 18 sites related to the subject. By the end of 2022, he will complete his notes, illustrating them with further maps and photographs.
Apocalypse | Revelation between Beth Shemesh and Tennessee
In the Holy Land, in Jerusalem and Beth Shemesh, Sr Trinidad Nieto, of the Nuns of Bethlehem, continues her research on the intertextuality of Revelation and the Song of Songs, within the framework of a master’s degree in “Bible and culture” directed by O.-Th. Venard for Domuni universitas.
From the United States, sister Mary Dominic Pitt O.P. is advancing well her translations and philological annotations of the Book of Revelation.
The Herbarium of the Bible and a Canonical Degree
Sr Marie Reine, after the rich series of original maps with which she has enriched our Bible, is carefully collecting the herbarium of the Bible, starting with Sirach 24 and the Song of Solomon, while waiting to start the Bestiary in a few months.
She successfully defended her dissertation for her Theology Bachelor’s degree in Toulouse, on 7 June, on “Mary’s fullness of grace, a gift for the Church”: congratulations!
Professor Győző Vörös in Machaerus
Our friend who led the excavations in Machaerus, wrote us:
I am delighted to tell you that during the last seven years the mission has been accomplished concerning my modest interpretation on the Golgotha of Saint John the Baptist for BEST. I am very grateful for your letters and invitation (below) from 2014 and 2018. The result can be found in your distinguished Library.
He kindly adds this abstract from his book :
“Naturally, as there are tens of thousands of paintings and visual portrayals of the characters connected to the Machaerus Gospel scene, most of them complete with architectural details in the background, there are tens of thousands of intertextual literary references as well. However, our twenty-first-century holistic quest for the better understanding of the reception history of the Gospel events that took place among the Herodian walls of the Biblical citadel on the eastern side of the Dead Sea, is absolutely honest and legitimate. It is in complete harmony with the intentions of the Dominican Fathers in the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem. I had the privilege to provide the lectio magistralis for their 2014 Dies Academicus in Jerusalem, and after my presentation, Father Olivier-Thomas Venard OP, the Scientific Director of their Research Program and their International Editorial Committee, presented their new quest.
It was my pleasure that Professor Venard asked me at the end of the Jerusalem Dies Academicus event to undertake, besides my responsibilities for the archaeological excavations, surveys, and restorations of Machaerus, the task of mapping the Biblical traditions of the relevant Gospel passages in reception history as well. In a humble way, the present book is my modest answer to his official request. I am sure the Reader will agree with me that such a reception history will always depend on the cultural anthropological context of the writer and the readers. The emphasis is always changing according to time and place. My views are those of a simple Roman Catholic Hungarian family man, a happy husband and father, dating from 2021. The reception history would be fundamentally different for a religious Jew, a Muslim man or woman, not to mention a nun in Latin America, an orthodox monk in Africa, or an atheist Japanese philosopher” (pp. 348-349)
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Xavier Lafontaine, a New Doctor and the Sibyls
Xavier, who was the summer “proto-assistant” of our program many years ago (2013, 2014), defended an exciting thesis on March 17, 2022, at the University Palace of Strasbourg: “Hellenism and Prophecy: Biblical Rewriting in the Jewish and Christian Sibylline Oracles.”
Here is the summary:
Beginnings of Isaiah
These last few weeks have seen the launch of an “Isaiah” team, with Henri Vallançon (SSD, EBAF), Grégoire Sabatié-Garat (SSL, PBI, Rome) and Etienne Méténier (PhD, Kaslik); from which we have great expectations.
Daniel’s slow gestation
Paul Rodrigue, a doctoral student at the University of Cambridge and a young researcher in Jerusalem in his first semester is currently preparing to fully revise our translation of Daniel.
