IMC 2006: Sessions

Session 1021: The Role of Exegesis in Medieval Culture, I: Exegesis as a Cultural Framework

Sponsor:	Brill Academic Publishers
Organisers:	Christine Feld, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge Ineke van 't Spijker, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge
Moderator/Chair:	Ineke van 't Spijker, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge
Paper 1021-a	Resisting the Harder Reading: Patristic Attempts to Stabilize Matthew 24.36 (Language: English) John J. Kitchen, Department of History & Classics, University of Alberta, Edmonton Index terms: Biblical Studies, Theology
Paper 1021-b	12th-Century Biblical Exegesis and the Invention of Literature (Language: English) Robert A. Harris, Department of Bible & Ancient Semitic Languages, Jewish Theological Seminary, New York Index terms: Biblical Studies, Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Theology
Abstract	This session aims to explore exegesis as a mode of thinking which shaped many aspects of late antique and medieval Jewish and Christian society - and vice versa. Exegesis has been the scene of theological (Christological) controversies, which condition the transmission and interpretation of biblical texts in the patristic era. Exegesis extends to texts other than biblical commentaries, however, and a diachronic study of the interpretation of a particular biblical text in commentaries and other sources shows how certain interpretative models evolve through time. It also reveals how a contextual reading of biblical composition, and attention to what we would call its 'literary qualities', result in the 'invention' of the notion of literature.