Session 1: General Session
Princess O’Nika Auguste, Dublin City University, ‘Adornment, Ashes, and Asceticism: Bodily Protest in Greek Esther, Joseph and Aseneth, and the Acts of Paul and Thecla’
This paper examines how three entangled texts, the Greek Additions to Esther, Joseph and Aseneth, and the Acts of Paul and Thecla, deploy female bodily practices (jewellery, cosmetics, disrobing, ashes) as strategies of bodily protest within Hellenistic and Greco‑Roman society. Drawing on a feminist theories approach informed by historical analysis of gender and ritual in antiquity, I analyse how these narratives construct female bodily protest through corporeal acts. Greek Esther alternates between mourning sackcloth and royal splendour, using her adorned body to reverse a genocide decree within Persian‑Hellenistic court protocols. Joseph and Aseneth stage a dramatic rejection of Egyptian gold and fine linen, followed by heavenly re‑adornment after conversion, challenging Greco‑Roman assumptions that a woman’s value lies in material ornament. Thecla rejects all adornment and marriage, cuts her hair, and adopts male attire as a bodily protest Roman household code. Read together, these texts reveal a shared Jewish‑Christian discourse in which makeup, jewellery, and clothing are never merely cosmetic. Instead, they function as contested signs of ethnic loyalty, divine transformation, or radical renunciation in dialogue with Greco‑Roman gender norms.
Crhistian Cardona, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, ‘Listening Philo in Paul? The Therapeutae, The Corinthians, and Liturgy at the Symposion’
Philo’s On the Contemplative Life and Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians are examples of Jewish works that draw from the tradition of the ancient symposion for their categories of proper meal gatherings (Klinghardt; Smith). To date, the relationship between the Therapeutae’s liturgy and the Corinthians’ liturgy within the framework of idealized symposia has not been explored. In this paper I aim to answer the question, “To what extent does Philo’s Contempl. Life inform the form of liturgy outlined in 1 Corinthians against the background of the social institution of the symposion?” Building on the elements of a comparative methodology proposed by Oliver Freiberger and on John S. Kloppenborg’s definition of “heuristic comparison,” I argue that the symposia of the Therapeutae as presented by Philo in Contempl. Life is very close to the idealized liturgical picture that we encounter in Paul’s exposition in 1 Corinthians; as such, the Therapeutae’s liturgy could be taken as a mirror for the liturgical practices of the Christ community at Corinth.
Alan Garrow, Sheffield Centre for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies, ‘The Didache Discoveries and the Parting of the Ways’
The Didache has long been recognised as a multi-author text that evolved over a considerable period. This paper observes three stages in that evolution and correlates them to distinct steps in the Parting of the Ways. The first, identified as the Apostolic Decree composed in 48CE (cf. Acts 15), marks a point when the main concern of the Jesus group was to integrate Gentile believers without compromising the Torah-observance of its Jewish members. The second, the Missing Epistle of John (cf. 3 John 9), possibly created in the 50s CE, includes a form of initiation that may provide the first sign of a distinct departure from the parent religion. The third, later in the first century and following the amalgamation of the two earlier texts (the so-called ‘Didache Discoveries’), introduced practices designed to cement and emphasise Christianity’s institutional separation from Judaism.
Session 2: Joint Session with Book of Revelation Group
Veronica Moreno Arjona, University of Lorraine, ‘Pseudo-Ezekiel and the Book of Revelation: The Throne Vision, the Babylon Motif, and a Shared Prophetic Legacy’
Pseudo-Ezekiel is a fragmentary composition from the Dead Sea Scrolls, preserved in six manuscripts from Qumran Cave 4 (4Q385, 4Q385b, 4Q385c, 4Q386, 4Q388, and 4Q391). The title reflects the work’s character as rewritten Scripture within the Ezekiel tradition. Nevertheless, Pseudo-Ezekiel is more than just a rewriting; it is a polyphony of words and utterances that existed before and whose authoritative status and identity relevance seek to be perpetuated. This study examines two literary parallels between Pseudo-Ezekiel and the Book of Revelation in the light of a shared prophetic legacy. Firstly, a comparison is made between the throne vision of 4Q385 6 and Revelation 4, with a focus on the four living creatures and, in particular, the “calf” variant in relation to Ezekiel 1:10. Secondly, the Babylon motif in 4Q386 1 iii and Revelation 17–18 is examined, with particular attention paid to the imagery of Babylon as a cup and a demonic dwelling place, against the background of Jeremiah 51 in both the MT and the LXX.
Jared W. Hay, University of Edinburgh, ‘”Clothed in white robes”: Nuances of John the Seer’s Garment Language’
Students of Revelation need to pay close attention to its detail, because John uses words carefully. One such detail is the way in which John uses language describing the clothes of several of the characters, and the significance of these descriptions. That such a study is needed can be shown from the way in which translations and commentators have ‘flattened’ John’s range of Greek words in ways that make it impossible to perceive any difference in nuance and significance. Usually the Greek words – βύσσινος (x5), ἱμάτιον (x7), λίνον (x1), ποδήρη (x1), and στολὰς (x5) – are translated as ‘robe,’ ‘garment,’ or ‘linen’ and ‘fine linen’ with little regard as to who is wearing them and what they signify. The emphasis is usually on the colour ‘white’ or that they have been ‘washed in the blood of the Lamb.’
Albert-Beniamin Cucu, Romania, ‘The Intertextual Relationships between Rev 18:4 and Gen 19:15: An Overlooked Allusion’
This study investigates the intertextual relationships between Revelation 18:4 and Genesis 19:15, addressing a notable gap in biblical scholarship. While both passages share thematic and theological parallels, existing research has not explicitly identified Genesis 19:15 as an allusion to Revelation 18:4, nor provided a comprehensive intertextual analysis. Genesis 19:15 informs the interpretation of Revelation 18:4 by linking the fall of Babylon to the destruction of Sodom. Both texts call God’s people to “come out,” emphasizing separation from sin and divine judgment. This parallel enhances the understanding of Revelation 18:4, revealing a consistent divine pattern of judgment and redemption from Genesis to Revelation. To establish Genesis 19:15 as an allusion to Revelation 18:4, four criteria were applied: (1) textual availability— confirming John’s familiarity with Genesis; (2) linguistic parallels— identifying shared phrases; (3) thematic parallels— highlighting common motifs of separation and divine judgment; and (4) structural parallels— revealing similar narrative progression. Based on these criteria, the study concludes that Genesis 19:15 is a meaningful allusion to Revelation 18:4, providing valuable insights into the theological unity of Scripture.
Session 3: General Session
Aminta Arrington, Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, ‘Mary’s Good Portion Within the Context of First-Century Judaism: Relooking Luke 10:42’
In Luke 10:42, Jesus states that Mary has chosen the good portion (τὴν ἀγαθὴν μερίδα), and that it will not be taken away from her. The meaning of this phrase, and with it the significance of this passage, is not to be understood through Greek translation, however, but rather through attending to the first-century Jewish context, and its Hebrew and Aramaic roots. Both “good” and “portion” are highly resonant terms in the Torah, the Psalms, the Mishnah, and other Jewish literature, and they are found as a phrase in Targums as well as Sirach. I suggest that by the time of the first century, “good portion” had emerged as a theological shorthand in Aramaic-speaking Palestinian Jewish thought reflecting the abundant share God gives to his people. In saying that Mary has chosen the “good portion,” then, Jesus is not combining together two independent morphemes, “good” and “portion,” somewhat awkwardly. Rather, he was intentionally using a well-understood oral idiom that carried deep religious resonances, but using it in an original and perhaps startling way, emphasizing that Mary’s choice reflects not presumption, but inhabiting what is rightfully her own, for the Lord is her portion, and studying his Word is her allotted share.
Thomas Finegan, Mary Immaculate College, ‘Re-considering Joseph’s Righteousness in Matt 1:19’
Joseph is labelled righteous (δίκαιος) in Matt 1:19 for his unwillingness to publicly disgrace Mary. Two basic interpretations have been advanced: Joseph is righteous for (a) mercifully concealing Mary’s adultery (the clearly dominant view since roughly 1960), or (b) reverentially divorcing Mary so as not to intrude upon her election by God. However, (a) cannot account for how a “righteous” Jew, as an adherent to Torah, would have strong biblical motive for seeking to uncover and punish adultery; while (b) cannot explain why Joseph’s righteousness is immediately indexed to his unwillingness to publicly disgrace Mary (and not to his resolve to [quietly!] divorce her). I propose what is seemingly a new interpretation: Joseph is righteous for not slandering the innocent Mary, per Deut 22:13–19. Rather than his righteousness being a response to female sin, as almost all contemporary exegetes think, Joseph’s righteousness is evidenced by an unwillingness to commit a prototypically male sin. Matthew, unlike contemporary scholarship, assumes male sin to have been the question. Some remarks on Matt 1:20–21 conclude the paper.
Andrew Doole, University of Innsbruck, ‘Inventing a Diaspora: Applying Identity Studies on Children of Immigrants to Bardaisan of Edessa’s “New Tribe of Us Christians”’
Bardaisan of Edessa points to Persian and Judean diasporas to argue that Christians likewise observe their own customs regardless of where they live. Yet Christians do not take their culture with them from a homeland through migration. Recent studies on (grand)children of immigrants (formerly problematically labelled “second/third generation immigrants”) reveal acomplex, intersectional negotiation of identity where “homeland” is by no means an essential element. The vey phenomenon of diaspora social identity formation allows Bardaisan to “invent” a Christian diaspora. I will draw on studies of both ancient Judean and Persian diasporas and modern empirical research on identity negotiation among children ofimmigrants in order to uncover the dynamics at play in the invention of a Christian diaspora by Bardaisan of Edessa, a figure overlooked in recent academic discussions of ancient Christian ethnic reasoning.