The question of what constitutes a human being is by no means new, but it has arisen with new acuity and urgency in the context of various public debates. The images of human beings in the Bible are neither thematically stringent nor do they provide a uniform picture in their entirety. 

In both the Old and New Testaments, there are polyphonic answers to the question of what constitutes being human. This project examines continuities and discontinuities in biblical discourse on anthropology. Without advocating a fundamentalist understanding of scripture, it locates the foundations of a Christian conception of humanity in Biblical Anthropology. 

The anthropological statements of the Bible form a normative framework, a system of coordinates in which a Christian position on human being should be located. Following the Christian-Jewish biblical hermeneutics of canonical discursivity developed by E. Zenger, a canonical dialogue is sought using the example of anthropological themes (creaturality, gender, body, emotions, cult, personality, death, etc.). This dialogue does not abolish the diversity, polyphony, and sometimes even contrast between the Old and New Testaments, but rather develops a complementary and discursive Biblical Anthropology based on the theological unity of the testaments. The various biblical voices, in particular, are understood as useful contributions and "saving translations" to the question that no discipline can solve on its own: What is a human being?

This project ist funded by FWF and FWO.