Skip to main content
European Commission logo
español español
CORDIS - Resultados de investigaciones de la UE
CORDIS

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

Descripción del proyecto

Una comparación entre los papiros egipcios demóticos y la Biblia hebrea

El descubrimiento de muchos papiros en escritura egipcia demótica en los últimos dos decenios ha dado lugar a un corpus importante de literatura egipcia disponible para su estudio. La literatura demótica es comparable a la Biblia hebrea, pues pertenecen al mismo entorno histórico y tienen sus raíces en la misma cultura de escribas. El proyecto financiado con fondos europeos DEMBIB comparará los papiros demóticos disponibles con la literatura bíblica mediante una investigación de los paralelismos estructurales y la identificación de estrategias de composición de los dos tipos de literatura. Además, DEMBIB contemplará estas características literarias en el contexto sociohistórico comprendido desde los siglos VI al III a.°e.°c., período durante el que las élites de escribas egipcias y judías se enfrentaron a retos similares.

Objetivo

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.

Régimen de financiación

ERC-ADG - Advanced Grant

Institución de acogida

HUMBOLDT-UNIVERSITAET ZU BERLIN
Aportación neta de la UEn
€ 2 500 000,00
Dirección
UNTER DEN LINDEN 6
10117 Berlin
Alemania

Ver en el mapa

Región
Berlin Berlin Berlin
Tipo de actividad
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Enlaces
Coste total
€ 2 500 000,00

Beneficiarios (1)