This research project examines the history of ideas in ancient Israel and explores the content and processes through which the divine was conceptualised, remembered, documented and disseminated. To this end, biblical and extra-biblical texts, as well as the material culture of the southern Levant in the 1st millennium BC, are examined in their respective contexts with regard to constructions of knowledge about the divine and the underlying structures and patterns of thought. Drawing on these sources and their diverse perspectives, the project adopts an interdisciplinary approach aimed at identifying and reconstructing religious actors, ancient socio-epistemic communities, centres and networks, whilst simultaneously analysing and describing their framework conditions, regional and socio-historical contexts, dynamics and ideas.

The project comprises four sub-projects, which bring their research findings together on a shared digital platform, thereby creating synergies between the studies. In this way, constructions of knowledge about the divine and the underlying structures of thought are brought to light; these are discussed in workshops and conferences and documented in various publications.

Sub-project 1 ‘Structures of Thought Behind the Emergence of Monotheism: Towards an Epistemology of the Divine as the One’ (Project Leader Jan Dietrich, Bonn): How and why did monolatry and monotheism become conceivable in ancient Israel? Monolatry/monotheism implies, alongside concentrated forms of belief and practice, a monistic thought structure which, in religious terms, focuses exclusively (‘mono’) on the one and only God. How and why did this monistic thought structure come into being? What kinds of knowledge constructions arise from this thought structure? To answer these innovative questions, strategies and processes of centralisation, systemic differentiation and abstraction, as well as specific focal points in the history of ideas, will be analysed and linked to possible conditions, causes and parallels.

Sub-project 2 “Reflections on the knowability of God in various discursive contexts: Towards an epistemology of the divine as (un)knowable” (Project leader Annette Schellenberg-Lagler, Vienna): This sub-project focuses on the ways in which the divine is conceptualised in the Hebrew Bible, insofar as these relate to the question of the knowability of God. How can YHWH (and his actions, his will, etc.) be experienced, recognised, known and understood? Why and how is this experience or knowledge significant? How can it be passed on to others, and where do the challenges and limitations lie? To answer these questions, we aim to unravelling and explain the complexity and diversity of the Hebrew Bible’s approaches to the question of the knowability of God by reconstructing the knowledge constructions regarding the knowability of God in various texts and identifying their connections to discourses and epistemic communities.

Sub-project 3 ‘Daily Visible: Towards an Epistemology of the Divine Mediated through (the) Images’ (PI Thomas Wagner, Wuppertal): This sub-project investigates the mediation of knowledge constructions of the divine through stamp and cylinder seals as the first forms of mass media. The seals are understood as external manifestations of religious thought and as a medium for conveying a model of reality. Images serve to manifest both ideas and social structures, and their increasing dissemination establishes spheres of influence and knowledge. Based on these assumptions, the project aims to map epistemic centres and the networks emanating from them in relation to local social and economic conditions, land use, settlement patterns, trade and communication routes. In this way, the interrelationships between the mediation of knowledge constructions through signs/symbols/subjects, the resulting norms, the relationship of the individual artefact to the local and regional iconography, and thus their local interpretations, are made visible.

Sub-project 4 “Epistemic Centres or Networks: Towards an Epistemology of the Divine as the Many” (Project Leader Angelika Berlejung, Leipzig/Stellenbosch/Bar Ilan): Sub-project 4 investigates the epistemology of the divine in Palestine/Israel (West Bank) during the first millennium BC, particularly in the Iron Age I–III (1200–538 BC), based on the study of sanctuaries and their ritual find assemblages, which are regarded as external representations of religious thought, as repositories of religious knowledge, and as strategies for religious action and communication. It involves a spatial analysis and models regional phenomena in order to gain a better understanding of the nature of the remains and artefacts found, their distribution within the sacred space, as well as the distribution of sanctuaries, their interactions and their function as epistemic centres or networks in relation to natural resources, land use, settlement patterns, and trade and communication routes.