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From Texts to Literature: Demotic Egyptian Papyri and the Formation of the Hebrew Bible

Project description

Comparing Egyptian Demotic Papyri and the Hebrew Bible

The discovery of numerous papyri in Egyptian Demotic script during the last 20 years has offered the research community a considerable new corpus of Egyptian literature. The Demotic literature is comparable to the Hebrew Bible as both emerged from the same historical environment and are rooted in a scribal culture. The EU-funded DEMBIB project will compare the recently accessible Demotic papyri with Biblical literature by investigating the structural parallels between them and identifying the compositional strategies of the two kinds of literature. DEMBIB will also consider these literary features in the socio-historical environment of the 6th to 3rd century BCE, during which Egyptian and Jewish scribal elites faced similar challenges.

Objective

With the discovery of numerous papyri in Egyptian Demotic script during the last two decades, a whole new corpus of Egyptian literature has become available. Based on 25 years of research of the Principle Investigator (PI) on Egypt and the Hebrew Bible, this project, for the first time ever, correlates the newly accessible Demotic papyri with Biblical literature. Since the Demotic literature comes from the exact historical period when the Hebrew Bible received its final form – the Persian and Hellenistic Age – the Egyptian papyri are nothing less than the extra-Biblical evidence Biblical scholarship has asked for over decades. Like the Hebrew Bible, the Demotic literature is rooted in a scribal culture, and thus displays significant parallels to Biblical literature.

The DEMBIB project aims 1) to investigate the structural parallels in Demotic literature and the Hebrew Bible; 2) to identify the compositional strategies of Demotic and Biblical literature; and 3) to contextualize these literary characteristics in the socio-historical situation of the 6th–3rd c. BCE when a scribal elite in Egypt and “Israel” faced similar challenges such as a changing socio-cultural environment and a marginalization of traditional temples.

The groundbreaking character of DEMBIB lies in: 1) the cross-cultural comparison of newly discovered Egyptian papyri and the Hebrew Bible; 2) the analysis of similar literary processes in Egyptian Demotic and Biblical literature; 3) the understanding of the dynamics between a distinct scribal culture and its socio-historical context.

The main goal of DEMBIB is to offer a new paradigm for the understanding of the transformation of textual traditions into complex forms of literature in Egypt and Israel during the Persian and Hellenistic Period. By doing so, one of the most crucial questions in Hebrew Bible scholarship today should be answered: the intellectual and historical context for the final formation of the Hebrew Bible.

Host institution

HUMBOLDT-UNIVERSITAET ZU BERLIN
Net EU contribution
€ 2 500 000,00
Address
UNTER DEN LINDEN 6
10117 Berlin
Germany

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Region
Berlin Berlin Berlin
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost
€ 2 500 000,00

Beneficiaries (1)