ES201A  JEWISH HERMENEUTICS - CHRISTIAN HERMENEUTICS, METHODOLOGY AND TEXTUAL STUDY: CLASSICAL PERIOD (A.A. 2024/2025)

• Unità Accademica

  Centro Cardinal Bea per gli Studi Giudaici

• Corso

  Licenza in Studi Giudaici e Relazioni Ebraico-Cristiane

Objectives: A careful reading of the primary sources. A deeper awareness of potentials linked to hermeneutics. Having a Jewish-Christian dialogue based on tradition. Acquisition of a methodology of research in the field of Jewish-Christian classical texts and hermeneutics. A careful critical reading of primary sources. A deeper mindfulness of potentials linked to hermeneutics. Having a Jewish-Christian dialogue based on tradition.

Learning Outcomes: Students will learn how to handle, read and critically analysed classical rabbinic and Christian texts.

Content: Both Judaism and Christianity regard themselves as an interpretation of “Holy Scripture”. Both have moulded – after the establishment of the Biblical Canon – the notion of a “normative reading” of their respective traditions. On the one hand, the “Classics of Judaism” (Jacob Neusner), Mishnah, Talmud and Midrashim, as well as the Medieval Commentaries; on the other, the so-called “Tradition of the Church”, the Magisterium with Patristic and Scholastic Theology. Whilst the Jewish and Christian hermeneutics of these texts, has classically been considered in conflict with the other, today there is a growing awareness that “on the practical level of exegesis, Christians can, nonetheless, learn much from Jewish exegesis practiced for more than two thousand years, and, in fact, they have learned much in the course of history” (The Pontifical Biblical Commission: The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible). Participants in this seminar, led by a Rabbi and the Director of the Cardinal Bea Centre, will be introduced to the reading of classical Jewish writings with the objective to access hermeneutical and methodological criteria capable of both leading to a traditional comprehension and a novel understanding that springs from a common study. This happens inductively, through careful reading, in English and Italian, of selected passages from the Middle Ages to the 20th Century. This may bring the Christian-Jewish dialogue to a level of authenticity where the recognition of each tradition may dispose the participants to discover possibilities, inherent in the very same traditions, to go beyond the reiteration of their respective differences.
After an initial session presenting the overall methodology and topical content of the seminar, the other sessions of the seminar will be led by student (or a pair of students), inductively guiding a group discussion, through a careful reading of selected passages from the “formative age” of both Judaism and Christianity, that is from the first centuries AD until the early Middle Ages.

Methodology: Active participation of all students, accurate and critical reading of the texts, text-based discussion and debate, student presentations and methodology of oral presentation, classroom discussions.

Means of Evaluation: It will be indicated at the beginning of the seminar.

• Informazioni
• Docenti
• Orario lezioni/Aula
• Bibliografia

Informazioni

• Semestre: 1° Semestre
• ECTS: 5

Docenti

Massimo GARGIULO

David MEYER

Orario lezioni/Aula

Semestre	Giorno	Dalle	Alle	Aula	Piano	Palazzo	Note
1° Semestre	Martedì	15.00	15.45	T305	3	Traspontina
1° Semestre	Martedì	16.00	16.45	T305	3	Traspontina

Bibliografia

• To be given at the beginning of the Seminar.