Department of Literature and Exegesis of the Old Testament

The Holy Scripture of Israel, of Jesus and the early Christians, the „Old Testament“ of the Christian Bible, makes special demands on our present understanding and interpretation. The historical documents of Israel’s religious belief and life are available for us in a language that is only literarily traditioned. They reflect Israel’s concern and conflict with its cultural and religious environment in the ancient near east. The texts have frequently passed through a long history of composition and redaction. They concentrate the intentions of saying and effecting of biblical authors and traditions for many generations. At the same time as biblical texts they are exemplarily transparent for new situations of life. Therefore, the first and fundamental task of the Department of Literature and Exegesis of the Old Testament is to in-vestigate the historically developed levels of meaning and options of understanding of biblical texts by an exegesis reflected in terms of methodology and hermeneutics and so to make these texts open for a theological interpretation and orientation of existence and acting in our time. Special fields of investigation and working are the following:

• (1) the literary and theological investigation of prophetic texts, especially of the book of Isaiah and of books of the „minor“ prophets;
  
• (2) research into the connection of speech acts with intentions and effects in Biblical Hebrew poetry (Psalms and prophetic speech);
  
• (3) aspects of biblical anthropology (especially in wisdom oriented texts) in correspondance to the understanding of God;
  
• (4) exegetical methodology and hermeneutics and linguistics of Biblical Hebrew.