Monday, May 30, 2016

Jenkins on the Enoch Seminar

PHILIP JENKINS: The Enoch Seminar (The Anxious Bench).
So what does the Enoch Seminar do? It describes its topic areas as “Second Temple Judaism, Christian, Rabbinic and Islamic Origins,” and that staggeringly broad reach is deliberate. The basic theme is that the Jewish world between, say, 300 BC and 200 AD, included a great many ideas and themes, some of which fit well into standard and orthodox views of Jewish history, but others would be viewed as Christian, Jewish-Christian, Gnostic or Jewish-sectarian.
A good brief overview of the work of the Enoch Seminar, of which I have been a member since 2003. I shall be attending the 6th Nageroni Enoch Seminar next month in Camaldoli, Italy. It's topic is John the Jew: Reading the Gospel of John’s Christology as a Form of Jewish Messianism, and I shall be responding to a paper by Catrin Williams. James McGrath will also be presenting a paper. Past reports on Enoch Seminars I have attended are here and links.