Tuesday, 08/12/2025
Please note that the program is currently still preliminary and may be subject to change.
Sessions 1 (14:30–16:00)
| Panel | Chair | Paper 1 | Paper 2 | Paper 3 | Paper 4 |
| Geography and Composition in the Books of Samuel 1 | Jeremy Hutton (University of Wisconsin–Madison),
Stephen Germany (University of Lausanne), and Sara Kipfer (TU Dortmund University) |
“Judah” and the Scribal Imagination in the Books of Samuel (Mahri Leonard-Fleckman) | David at Hebron: Reading Samuel Among the Ruins (Daniel Pioske) | In Search of the Early Philistines (Ido Koch) | |
| Demotic Egyptian Papyri and the Formation of the Hebrew Bible: First Results of the ERC DEMBIB Project | Bernd Schipper (Humboldt University of Berlin) |
The Sparse Ground of Counterfactuality in the Judean Novella (Joseph Cross) |
The many Uses of Demotic and Late-Egyptian Literature for Biblical Research (Meike Röhrig) |
Scribal strategies and similarities between Demotic wisdom instructions and Hebrew Proverbs (Robert Kade) | |
| Documented Evidence for Literary Criticism 1 | Juha Pakkala (University of Helsinki) | Documented Evidence and Literary Criticism (Juha Pakkala) | What is a 'Word' and a 'Text'? A Cognitive-Linguistic Critique of the Historical-Critical Method (Raymond F. Person, Jr) | The Absence of “Sectarian Variants” in the "Biblical" Dead Sea Scrolls as Challenge to "Tendenzkritik" (Benjamin Ziemer) |
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| Scribal Culture and the Hebrew Bible 1 | Nathaniel Greene (University of Aberdeen), Matthieu Richelle (University of Louvain) | A Day in the Life...How to Situate Writing Within the Chaîne Opératoire of Iron Age Vessels (Alice Mandell) | Gab es institutionelle Schulen in der Welt des alten Israel? (Erhard Blum) | The Contribution of Undeciphered Ancient Middle Eastern Scripts to the History of the Alphabet (Madadh Richey) | How old are the Ethiopic letter names? And why does it matter for the study of Northwest Semitic Epigraphy? (Aren Wilson-Wright) |
| ISLP 1 | Richard A. Taylor (Dallas Theological Seminary) | The Bible of Edessa: Translating and Annotating the Peshitta of Exodus (R. B. ter Haar Romeny) | Framing the Use of the Syriac Particle ܕܶܝܢ in the Peshitta Psalms (Godwin Mushayabasa Mhuriyashe) | The Peshitta in the Apparatus of the BHQ of 1–2 Samuel (Craig E. Morrison) | |
| IOQS 2 | Molly Zahn (Yale University) | Exhortations, Laws, and Implied Speakers: Understanding the Damascus Document as a Textualized Performance of the Mebaqqer (Jeffrey Cross) | Scribal Culture Features of Organisation and Memory in 4QInstruction: The Elusive Structure of a Fragmentary Sapiential Text (Lindsey A. Davidson) | The Adaption of Sapiential Phrases to Create Halakha in 4QMMT (Ananda Geyser-Fouché) | Anonymity in the Hodayot (Michael B. Johnson) |
| Mystery and Esotericism 1 | Arjen Bakker (University of Cambridge), Hindy Najman (University of Oxford) | Ethicisation of Ritual and Esotericism in the Levi Traditions (Christoph Nihan) | Holiness and Mystery: A Reexamination of their Relation in Priestly Texts (Annie Calderbank) | (A Hymn) Pregnant with Meaning: Life and Death of the inner self in Hodayot Column XI (Christine Rosa De Freitas) | Grasping the Unfathomable: Hidden Knowledge in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (Noam Mizrahi) |
| Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Esther 1 | I Can Fix Him, No Really I Can: Good Rule in Chronicles (Haley Krikpatrick) | Qualified Continuity: Idolatry and the Temple Vessels in the Book of Chronicles (Francisco Martins) | Tensions and Assimilations between “YHWH’s Torah” and “Moses’ Torah” in Ezra-Nehemiah (Zhenshuai Jiang) | ||
| IOMS 1 | Yosef Ofer (Bar Ilan University) | How did the Masoretes work? The Masoretes' work as reflected in three biblical manuscripts (Yosef Ofer) | The Silent Period of Hebrew Manuscripts (Mordechai Vaintrob) | ||
| IOSCS 3.1 | Alison Salvesen (University of Oxford) | The Septuagint Use of θλίβω and θλῖψις – Preliminary Observations (Eberhard Bons) | Ὅσιος and Cognates in the Septuagint (Dries De Crom) | Septuagintal Sycophants: συκοφαντ- in the Septuagint and in Post-Classical Greek (Maximilian Häberlein) | |
| IOSCS 3.2 | Felix Albrecht (Georg August University of Göttingen) | Creating a Hebrew–Greek–Hebrew Index of Theodotion in 1–2 Samuel With the Help of AI (Timo Tekoniemi) | Diversity and Development Within the Septuagint’s Kaige-Aquila Tradition (Ryan Comins) | Otto Thenius and Zacharias Frankel on the Text of the Books of Samuel (Theo van der Louw) | |
| Pentateuch 1 |
Andreas Schüle (University of Leipzig)
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Connecting themes and concepts between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2-3 (Benjamin Kilchör) | Gen 2,16-17: Das erste Speisegebot in der Tora? Eine intertextuelle Spurensuche (Jonas Brunner) | Gen 6:1-4 - a mytho-analytical approach to explaining an enigmatic text (Michaela Bauks) | |
| Former Prophets 1 | Theophanic Counterparts: A Narratological Study in Characterization and Identity Between the שר־צבא־יהוה (Josh 5:14) and the מלאך יהוה (Exod 3:2) (Derek Frederickson) | Joshua as a Role Model for Prophets. Insights from Josh 10:12–14 (Philipp Graf) | Fathers, Daughters, Oaths, and Commitments: An Analysis of the Structure of the Book of Judges and Its Contribution to Understanding the Book’s Meaning (Orit Avnery) | ||
| Isaiah 1 | A Fresh Approach to Isaiah 22:1b–8a (Hugh Williamson) | Justice and Righteousness in Isa 28–33. A Contribution to the Redaction and Composition History of the Book of Isaiah (Ulrich Berges) | Isaiah 35 Revisited (Ronnie Goldstein) | ||
| Religions of Ancient Israel and the Ancient Near East 1 | Felix Hagemeyer (University of Oldenburg) | The Babylonian Oracle Procedure: Theory and Practice (Netanel Anor) | napishtu of the gods of Mesopotamia - and the nephesh of YHWH in the Hebrew Bible? (Desiree Zecha) | A deity list or liturgy? KTU1.102 reconsidered (Shirly Natan-Yulzary) | |
| Theology, Ethics, and Hermeneutics 1 | Recent Contributions to the Discussion of Bible and Immigration – An Assessment and a Way Forward (Markus Zehnder) | "Hospitality in the Jewish Tradition: Lessons for the Contemporary Church" (Chase Rodriguez) | Gen 39 as encounter with consequences. Some notes on vulnerability and ethics of migration (Natalie Klimenko) | ||
| Psalms 1 |
Beat Weber
|
The Conflict Myth Narrative Structure as a Template for the Ordering of the Hebrew Bible Psalter (Clayton Mills) | War cries and peans in the Psalms (Sophie Ramond) | „Sie strauchelten und fielen …“ (Ps 27,2). Irreguläre w-SK-Formen in althebräischer Poesie? (Johannes Schiller) |
Sessions 2 (16:30–18:00)
| Panel | Chair | Paper 1 | Paper 2 | Paper 3 | Paper 4 |
| Geography and Composition in the Books of Samuel 2 | Jeremy Hutton (University of Wisconsin–Madison) | 1 Samuel and Its Geographie(s) of Belonging (Ekaterina Kozlova) | The place names of the second part of the Biblical account of David (Wolfgang Zwickel) | ||
| Theorizing Transmission and Textuality in Biblical Literature 2 | Jacqueline Vayntrub (Yale University) | Josiah’s Books: Depicted and Actual Transmission in 2 Kings 22-23 (Tim Hogue) | Textualization, New Mediations of Material Religion (Ingrid Lilly) | Now and Forever: Textual Transmission and the Poetics of Change (Francis Borchardt) | |
| Perspectives and Prospects on a Scroll Approach to the Formation of the Hebrew Bible (ERC DEMBIB) | Joseph Cross (Humboldt University of Berlin) | Prospects and Problems for a Scroll Approach (Drew Longacre) | A Scroll Approach to the Books of the Prophets (Nathan Mastnjak) | How Long Can Egyptian Texts on Papyrus Get (Joachim Quack) | Response (David Carr) |
| Documented Evidence for Literary Criticism 1 | Juha Pakkala (University of Helsinki) | Changing Places: Reading David’s Last Words in Different Contexts (Cynthia Edenburg) | Manuscript Evidence on the Editing of the Book of Ezekiel (Reettakaisa Sofia Salo) | ||
| Scribal Culture and the Hebrew Bible 2 | Nathaniel Greene (University of Aberdeen), Matthieu Richelle (University of Louvain) | Paleographic networks: Towards automated paleographic dating (Eythan Levy, Silas Klein Cardoso) | Statistical Analysis of Orthographic Use Patterns in the Isaiah Scroll (Barak Sober) | The Multimodality of Royal Inscriptions: The View from Ancient South Arabia (Mario Tafferner) | Scribes and/as Ritual Specialists: Writing Prayer in the Iron Age Levant (Spencer Elliott) |
| ISLP 2 | Richard A. Taylor (Dallas Theological Seminary) | Ghosts, Spirits and Winds – Lexical Gleanings from Mandaic Magic Texts (Matthew Morgenstern) | A Treatise on Homographs attributed to Elias of Nisibis (Sinai Syr X41N) (Nicolas Atas) | Cicero’s Greek: A Lexicographical Bridge to the New Testament (Michael P. Theophilos) | |
| IOQS 3 | Daniel Falk (Penn State University) | Sovereignty and Dominion in the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls (Robert E. Jones) | אמת as a Framing Principle at Qumran and Beyond (James Nati) | Enslavement in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Embodied, Metaphorical, and Debt (Carmen Palmer) | DJD XVII Twenty Years Later (Andrea Ravasco) |
| Mystery and Esotericism 2 | Arjen Bakker (University of Cambridge), Hindy Najman (University of Oxford) | Unsearchable Light: The Quest for Knowledge in 4Q392 (“Works of God”) and Second Isaiah (Ruthanne Brooks ) | In Praise of Darkness – rituals of mystery and initiation from Ancient Egypt (Robert Kade) | The Spirit of the Sofer and the Gathering of the Lost Tribes: Scriptural Mysteries in the Pesher on Psalms (4Q171) and 4 Ezra (Florian Neitman) | Secrets of Prayer: Esotericism in the Book of Daniel (Sarah Wisialowski) |
| Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Esther 2 | Ezra 2 as Grafted and Molded Ways of Thinking with a Twist (Kristin Joachimsen) | Temple Restoration in Ezra 1-6: How does it contribute to the cultic-political debates of the late Persian and early Hellenistic periods? (Louis Jonker) | |||
| IOMS 2 | Yosef Ofer (Bar Ilan University) | Masoretic Insights in Hebrew-Portuguese Biblical Lexicon: A New Approach (Edson de Faria Francisco) | Staatsbibliothek Or. fol. 1218 (Nehemia Gordon) | ||
| IOSCS 4.1 | Alison Salvesen (University of Oxford) | The ‘Imagined Readers’ of the Septuagint: Lexical Choices and Cultural Negotiation (Camilla Recalcati) | The Lexical Choice of ἁφή for נגע in OG Leviticus: A Greek-Priority Perspective (Alberto Paredes) | Knowledge From the Greek Bible: Lexical Investigations on ἐπιστήμη and Cognates (Laura Bigoni) | |
| IOSCS 4.2 | Felix Albrecht (Georg August University of Göttingen) | The Books of Hosea and Joel in Theodoret of Cyr’s Commentary on the Twelve Prophets (Tiphaine Lorieux) | Synoptic Edition of the Old Georgian Versions of the Book of Esther (GeII and GeI): Aims and Challenges (Natia Mirotadze) | Continuum, Threshold, and Procession: A Framework for Collaborative Text-Critical Analysis, With Examples From Ezra–Nehemiah (Steve C. Daley) | |
| Pentateuch 2 | Andreas Schüle (University of Leipzig) | “That’s What She Said:” A Legal and Narrative Analysis of Hagar and Sarah (Riane McConnell) | Jacob, his sons and the people living in the land: a troubled relationship (Suzana Chwarts) | ||
| Former Prophets 2 |
David Toshio Tsumura (Japan Bible Seminary) |
... Everyone Did as He Pleased (Jud 17:6; 21:25): Depicting Biblical Chaos (Nili Wazana) | Is there a covenant making in 1 Samuel 10:25? (Michael Avioz) | Military Strategy and Disinformation in 1 Samuel 13–14 (Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer) | |
| Isaiah 2 | Incantation Parodies in the Book of Isaiah (Juliane Eckstein) | You are my witnesses (Isaiah 43:9): Between Trial Witnesses and Covenant Keepers (Orit Malka) | Ways Through the Wilderness: Poetics and Problematics in the Study of Isaiah (Rebekah Van Sant) | ||
| Religions of Ancient Israel and the Ancient Near East 2 | Playing for God? Scenic Processes in Divine-Human Communication: A Case Study of שׂחק/צחק Pi‘el and Jer 27f (Judith Filitz) | Sukkot and the Kingship of God (Oliver Dyma) | On the language of the concept of praise God in the Hebrew Bible: A critical synthesis of the state of the art (Marcus Joubert) | ||
| Theology, Ethics, and Hermeneutics 2 | Decolonizing Western Biblical Hermeneutics - a potential Project? (Benedikt Collinet) | Contextually reading the Bible in the context of Homophobic Hate Crime in South Africa (Charlene Van der Walt) | |||
| Psalms 2 | Beat Weber | Polyphony of Existential Interpretations in Psalms 35-41 (Judith Gärtner) | Dressing up Yhwh as Warrior in Psalm 76 (David Ray) | An un(w)holy stone leading to Spiritual transformation. Reading Mark 12:1-12 in the light of Psalm 118:22-23 (Lodewyk Sutton) |