A scholarly conference on "The Exegetical Encounter between Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity” will be held at the Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations in Cambridge, England, June 24-27, 2007. The conference is being sponsored by the international scholarly group "Jewish and Christian Perspectives” together with the Cambridge Centre. It will examine the relationship between rabbinic and patristic biblical commentators, aiming to identify and analyse evidence of potential encounters between the two traditions in their interpretation of Scripture. This should illuminate the possibility both of the influence of rabbinic traditions on patristic ideas, and also possible Christian influence on Jewish exegesis. Persons interested in attending or offering papers are asked to contact Dr. Emmanouela Grypeou at eg299(at)cam.ac.uk or Dr. Helen Spurling at hss20(at)cam.ac.uk
The "Jewish and Christian Perspectives” project is a joint venture of Bar-Ilan University, Israel; Tilburg University, The Netherlands; the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, Israel; and the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies, Israel. Past conferences have included one on the development of liturgies in the two traditions, held in 2005 in Aachen, and one on literary forms from biblical to rabbinic literature, held in 2006 in Budapest. The group's most recent conference was held in Israel from January 21-24, 2007, on the theme "Between Syncretism and Independence: Models of Interaction between Judaism and Christianity.” Conference proceedings are published by Brill, Leiden.