From 8 to 10 February 2026, the project team met in person for the first time in Graz for an internal workshop. The meeting marked an important milestone in the collaboration between the teams from Leuven and Graz. It demonstrated the significant benefits of a canonical discourse and laid the foundation for the next phase of the project.
The individual sessions combined scholarly input with joint exegetical work. The project leaders, Prof. Dr Katharina Pyschny and Prof. Dr Veronika Burz-Tropper, opened the workshop with presentations on purity and impurity in the Old and New Testaments, thereby establishing an important conceptual basis for the discussions that followed. The doctoral researchers Matej Papić and Mads Hedegaard Kristensen presented the current state of their dissertation projects and offered new perspectives on the theme of self-reflexivity/interiority in the Old and New Testaments. The student research assistants Christina Schneidl and Nynke van Birgelen enriched the workshop with stimulating contributions on medicine in the Old Testament and resurrection in the New Testament, respectively.
The team looks forward to continuing this exchange and to organizing an exploratory workshop at the EABS Annual Conference, which will take place in Leuven from 20 to 23 July 2026. Scholars from the fields of Jewish Studies, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, New Testament, Dead Sea Scrolls, and Septuagint Studies will present papers exploring different anthropological perspectives, further strengthening the interdisciplinary approach of the project.
The team is also greatly looking forward to the project's official kick-off conference, which will take place in Graz from 21 to 22 October 2026. The conference will bring together scholars from Old and New Testament Studies for a canonical discourse on seven thematic areas of the project: self-reflexivity/individuality; embodiment and emotions; mortality and resurrection; sexuality; (im)purity; human perfection and fallibility; and healing/medicine/illness.
We look forward to exciting new perspectives and stimulating discussions on questions of what it means to be human in the Bible!
