Future Meetings
Narrative Epistemologien des Antiken Mittelmeerraums
28th Juni - 1st July 2027 Workshop @EABS Annual Conference London 2027
Organised by:
Benjamin De Vos, Ghent
Thomas Tops, Chur
Thomas Wagner, Wuppertal
This workshop explores ancient epistemes by examining how ancient narratives – from the Persian period to Late Antiquity – convey insights and negotiate claims to truth and knowledge. We focus on these narrative theories of knowledge, drawing on the internal textual strategies, rhetorical patterns, strategies of fictionality and literary criteria through which a narrative presents certain claims as credible, true or authoritative, whilst discrediting others as false or misleading. Secondly, the workshop examines how these epistemologies underpin or legitimise certain practices as true, whilst discrediting others as false or misleading. These practices may be explicitly depicted within the narratives themselves, but may also be linked to the social realities of the texts’ historical contexts. Thus, this section offers insights into the intertwined historical dimensions of the construction of both knowledge and social realities.
In 2027, we will focus on the hema oracle and oracular traditions. Engaging with these offers an opportunity to examine how narratives or narrative traditions represent forms of knowledge that are perceived as lying beyond ordinary human experience. Particular attention may be paid to the literary strategies through which prophetic or oracular knowledge is authenticated, interpreted, transmitted and sometimes contested, as well as to the ways in which different cultural traditions deal with the authority of such knowledge.
Epistemic Authority and the Practice of Truth in Ancient Jewish and Christian Texts and in Discourses in a Post-Factual Present
24–26 February 2027 at the University of Wuppertal
Organised by:
Stefan Freund, Wuppertal
Thomas Tops, Chur
Thomas Wagner, Wuppertal
Religion is based on holding certain statements to be true; communication about religion posits and affirms such truths. What gives rise to credibility in this context can be captured by the concept of ‘epistemic authority’ as defined by Hauswald (2024, 62): This exists when an authority is ‘epistemically superior’ to the recipient, whereby this superiority may, for example, relate to ‘knowledge of propositional truths concerning’ religion or to corresponding ‘practical knowledge or […] phenomenal knowledge or […] understanding’. In this sense, for example, religious texts frequently depict actions which, in direct dialogue with the relevant cultural knowledge, characterise what is said as true and thus presuppose a true-false taxonomy. The position conveyed as true often appears in the texts to be legitimised by a specific practice (e.g. prophecy, office or calling, social critique, moral correction or admonition, reinterpretation of authoritative testimonies), whereby this ‘truth practice’ may compete corrosively (following Lincoln 1994) with other truth practices. The relevant truth practice in each case is authorised through specific forms of recognition (Honneth 1992). This raises the fundamental question of how ‘epistemic authority’ can be established through a truth practice.
Whilst research to date on truth discourses in religious texts of the Judeo-Christian ancient world has focused on semantic and hermeneutic studies (æmeth, chæsæd; e.g. Ramsdell 1951, Kellenberger 1982; Hermisson 1995; parrhēsia, alētheia; e.g. Fitzgerald [ed.] 1996; Landmesser 1999; Fitzgerald et al. [eds.] 2004; Leppin 2022; Tops 2022; 2023), the proposed conference seeks to adopt a new approach by applying the concept of ‘epistemic authority’ and its justification through practices of truth. This will be achieved through the systematic and interdisciplinary analysis of texts from the following three phases: (1) In the Jewish writings from the Second Temple period, the form of justifying truth that had been common since the third millennium—namely, confirming mythical knowledge through empirical observations—is increasingly replaced by the reduction of truth to a principle of origin. (2) With the Jesus movement, one of the communities that had emerged from the process of differentiation within Judaism began to reach beyond its immediate surroundings, increasingly drawing on positions held by Diaspora Judaism (e.g. Philo of Alexandria) and turning towards other social groups within the Roman Empire. This gave rise to the need for religious truth to be grounded and recognised within other cultural contexts and their specific conditions. (3) Christian apologetics must formulate statements of faith based on biblical narratives—both in harmony with and in distinction from the pagan world—for a pagan audience and for an educated Christian audience seeking intellectual self-assurance.
In addition to this historical perspective, we seek to exemplify the ‘epistemic authorities’ visible in the discourses of a post-factual present, along with the practices of truth they employ, and to identify and describe the concepts of efficacy, in order to compare the structures recognised in them with those evident in ancient texts. This leads to conclusions regarding discourses on (religiously grounded) truths in a post-factual society.
Past Meetings
Narrative Epistemologies of the Ancient Mediterranean World
Workshop @EABS Annual Conference Leuven 2026
Organizers:
Benjamin De Vos, Ghent University
Thomas Tops, Unversity of Wuppertal
Thomas Wagner, University of Wuppertal
Over the past two decades, research in the humanities and cultural studies has undergone an “epistemic turn”, prompting a re-evaluation of how knowledge objects are developed and constructed, as well as how modes of thought are externalised through text and images. This shift has fuelled sustained debates across various disciplines regarding specific fields of knowledge, mediation of knowledge, and their documentation. This workshop engages with these debates by examining how ancient narratives - from the Persian period through Late Antiquity - mediate epistemologies and negotiate truth/knowledge claims. We focus on these narrative epistemologies, referring to the internal textual strategies, rhetorical patterns, and strategies of fictionality and literary criteria by which a narrative presents certain claims as credible, truthful, or authoritative, while discrediting others as false or deceptive. Secondly, the workshop explores how these epistemologies underpin or legitimise specific practices as true, while others are discredited as false or deceiving. These practices can be explicitly depicted in the narratives themselves but can also be related to social realities of the historical contexts of the text. Thus, theworkshop provides insights into the entangled historical dimensions of the construction of both knowledge and social realities.
The announced workshop seeks to explore the epistemological dimensions of ancient narratives by focusing on the textual, rhetorical, and fictional strategies through which knowledge and truth are conveyed. We refer to these as narrative epistemologies—the ways in which narratives present specific claims as credible, truthful, or authoritative while discrediting others as false or deceptive. Beyond textual strategies, the workshop also considers how such epistemologies relate to or underpin actual social practices, either represented within the narrative itself or inferred from its broader historical and cultural context. The aim is to better understand the mechanisms by which ancient narratives engage in truth discourse, construct legitimacy, and negotiate social and cultural norms through literary form. In doing so, the workshop hopes to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the entangled historical dimensions of knowledge production and validation in Mediterranean antiquity.
Ancestral Visual Epistemology
International Summer School @Faculdade Unida de Vitória, Brasil
Organisers:
Silas Klein Cardoso, Faculdade Unida de Vitória
Thomas Wagner, University of Wuppertal
Program:
Through their imagery, ancient cultures reveal aspects of the world that lie beyond everyday experiences. This corresponds to the modern concept of an Augmented Reality. In the summer school, we will turn our attention to the phenomena of Visual Thinking and Graphesis (Drucker, 2014) in order to explore, in the sense of a Historical Epistemology, the "reflection on the historical conditions under which, and the means by which, things are made into objects of knowledge, setting in motion and sustaining the process of scientific knowledge acquisition" (Rheinberger, 2007). By comparing different ancestral cultures and their visual epistemologies, we will search for the specifics that enable a deeper insight into knowledge constructions (episteme) and the underlying patterns and thinking structures.
The international summer school is a great opportunity to combine theoretical insights into epistemology and iconography with practical experience in image analysis, while coming into contact with students and lecturers from different academic contexts.
Target group:
This course is targeted for Graduate Students and PhD Students in Hebrew Bible, New Testament or similar fields.
Course aim:
Students will learn the basics of image analysis and be able to apply them to objects and artefacts. On the basis of continuous methodological reflection, they will be trained to evaluate their observations in relation to their respective research questions.
Participants will have the opportunity to present and discuss research projects.
The following topics will be covered in the course:
- Methodological approaches to image analysis
- Fundamentals of historical epistemology
- "Thick description" of ancient cultures and their thinking modes and patterns
- Reconstruction of culturally determined image programmes
Wisdom at the Interface between God and Humans
International Conference @University of Hamburg
Organisers:
PD Dr. Marcel Krusche, Hamburg
PD Dr. Thomas Wagner, Wuppertal
Wisdom or knowledge have a striking role in the narratives about the Garden of Eden in Gen 2–3 and Ezek 28:11–19 – both in the synopsis of the two texts and in the context of the Hebrew Bible. Whereas in Gen 2–3 the primal humans first acquire knowledge by grasping the fruit from the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" and are there-upon banished from the garden, in Ezek 28 the king of Tyre is endowed from the beginning with wisdom and beauty, both of which he loses because of his hubris. In both narratives, wisdom or knowledge is more than just a life-serving ability that can be acquired and learned by humans. Rather, by linking it to the mythical space of the Garden of Eden, it appears as a divine quality. Wisdom thus has superhuman dimensions and is located at the interface between God and humans. In Gen 2–3, humans become “like God” by attaining knowledge; in Ezek 28, the king endowed with wisdom is the exclusive human inhabitant of a mythical sphere. In both texts, wisdom or knowledge is an ambivalent quality insofar as it is related to the fall of the respective protagonists and their banishment from the garden.
The conference takes Gen 2–3 and Ezek 28:11–19 as a starting point for conceptions of wisdom and knowledge that crucially concern the divine-human relationship. However, it does not limit itself to these two texts, but places them in larger horizons of the Hebrew Bible, the ancient Near East and early Jewish literature. The aim is, on the one hand, to better understand the subject of wisdom or knowledge in Gen 2–3 and Ezek 28 and, on the other hand, to shed light on the superhuman and divine dimensions of wisdom and knowledge in the different textual areas and cultures.
The guiding questions of the conference can be summarized as follows:
- What makes wisdom and knowledge a divine or superhuman quality according to the view of the sources?
- How can humans attain and participate in divine wisdom?
- What effects and consequences do wisdom and knowledge have for humans?
- How and to what extent do wisdom and knowledge affect the relationship between God and humans?
Download Programme (update 21th November 2022)
Epistemology of the Ancient Fertile Crescent
International Conference @University of Wuppertal
Organisers:
Annette Schellenberg, Universität Wien
Jan Dietrich, Universität Bonn
Thomas Wagner, Universität Wuppertal
Reflection on knowledge is often assumed to origin in the formation of Greek philosophy since pre-Socratic times. Based on this insight, earlier cultural stages in the ancient Near East, including ancient Israel, are described as archaic. In these “archaic cultures”, reflections on the principles of knowledge and its doc-umentation in written sources are said to have hardly existed. Against this view, new approaches to the study of epistemologies in these cultures have emerged in the recent years. The aim of the conference “Epistemology of the Ancient Fertile Crescent” is to bring these new approaches into dialogue to create a concise picture of epistemological processes in the cultures of this region.
Programme Download (update 22 June 2022)
Last modified: 28.10.2026
