If you happen to be in Leuven this week and have an interest in early Christian papyri, I’ll be delivering on Thursday a paper in the doctoral seminar of the Institute of Classical Studies on “Early Christian Papyri between Classical and Theological Studies”. Here’s the abstract:

The papyri finds from the turn of the ninth century proved immensely fruitful for several fields in humanities – antique and late-antique history, classics, theology and early-Christian studies – as many unknown classical or theological texts have emerged. The different disciplines took different routes as they pursued different aims, with specific sets of tools and approaches. However, various disagreements have emerged in particular between classical studies and theology (more exactly between papyrology and early Christian studies), for instance with regard how the papyri are dated and are used to reconstruct a virtually ‘exceptional’ history of early Christianity. The aim of this paper is to map out the persistent tension between two fields as they approach and assess the same set of data: the papyrus finds in Egypt at the beginning of last century. Brought about not only by the different methodologies, but also by differing sets of assumptions, this tension can be shown to be not only instructive, but ultimately productive.

This will be preceded by the following paper:

Emanuel Zingg, “The New Verse Inscription from Mylasa. An Overview”

In September 2014, archaeologists found in Mylasa (modern Milas, Turkey) a huge stele from the beginning of the 2nd cent. BC. It contains the second longest Greek verse inscription known so far, a hymn to an unknown superhuman being. The lecture tries to give a first overview of the poem.

This would be on Thursday 7 June (12-2 pm), in the Romero room of the Collegium Veteranorum (COVE 02.10, Sint-Michielsstraat 2-4, Leuven).