Chontel Syfox: Ancient Hebrew Literature Beyond “The Bible”

Chontel Syfox will participate in a BRANE Collective workshop featuring David Lambert.

Lambert will consider recent scholarship emphasizing the fluidity of canonical boundaries in the late Second Temple period, how “authoritative scriptures” at the time could include more than just biblical texts. But such accounts still presume the existence of a very specific sort of “scriptural” relationship to texts—whether non-biblical or biblical—in particular, an often dubiously attested authority structure and instructional setting. These developments raise a fundamental question: What is Scripture? Is the idea of Scripture a natural, inevitable component of human religious experience? Do people relate to sacred texts according to regular, defined patterns?

Lambert will address these questions based on a chapter, “What is Scripture? An Introduction to Biblical Assemblages,” as part of a forthcoming book project. Other panel participants joining Lambert and Syfox include John Barton and Laura Carlson Hasler.

Zoom registration here.