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IMC 2017: Sessions

Session 1744: Making Sense of the World through Biblical Interpretation

Thursday 6 July 2017, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:German Historical Institute London
Organiser:Cornelia Linde, German Historical Institute, London
Moderator/Chair:Frans van Liere, Department of History, Calvin College, Michigan
Paper 1744-aOrdering Society
(Language: English)
Cornelia Linde, German Historical Institute, London
Index terms: Biblical Studies, Social History
Paper 1744-bOrdering the Community, Tracing Its Borders
(Language: English)
Francesco Siri, Section Latine, Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes, Paris
Index terms: Biblical Studies, Social History
Paper 1744-cOrdering the (End of the) World
(Language: English)
Eyal Poleg, School of History, Queen Mary, University of London
Index terms: Biblical Studies, Religious Life
Abstract

This session explores different ways in which biblical exegesis served to create, replicate, and prescribe order in medieval life. The first paper explores the use of the Book of Lamentations to explain and uphold social order in the medieval university classroom. The second paper discusses whether the passages in the Pauline Epistles relating to the definition of social order and especially to the dynamics of identity and otherness in a political perspective still held value for medieval exegetes and, if so, how they integrated them in their social views. The third paper, finally, looks at the Book of Revelation, examining the limits of a biblical mind-set. It suggests an intentional liminality and a conscious choice of distancing oneself from the core and key undertones of the biblical narrative.