Project Description
The DEMBIB project correlates newly accessible Demotic papyri with biblical literature. Like the Hebrew Bible, the Demotic literature from Egypt is rooted in a scribal culture and displays significant parallels to biblical literature.
The DEMBIB project aims to (1) investigate the structural parallels between Demotic literature and the Hebrew Bible; (2) identify the compositional strategies of Demotic and biblical literature; and (3) contextualize these literary characteristics in the socio-historical situation of the 6th–3rd c. BCE when a scribal elite in Egypt and “Israel” faced similar challenges, such as a changing socio-cultural environment and a marginalization of traditional temples.
The specific approach of DEMBIB lies in its cross-cultural comparison of newly discovered Egyptian papyri and the Hebrew Bible with experts on both text corpora working and collaborating together. By analyzing similar literary processes in Demotic Egyptian and biblical literature the project wants to shed light on the dynamics between a distinct scribal culture and its socio-historical context.