In the last number of years, time and temporality have become important topics of research on early Jewish texts, especially in the Dead Sea Scrolls and apocalyptic literature. Different types of texts can employ multiple temporalities in order to accomplish different aims, and time often functions as one aspect of the
formation of a Jewish identity. In this lecture it will be examined how some early Jewish works collapsed time in order to bring the reader and the text together in order to construct the reader’s Jewish identity.
Benjamin G. Wright III is University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Religion Studies at Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA USA). His research interests focus on the literature of Early Judaism, including the deuterocanonical texts. He has written extensively on the Wisdom of Ben Sira and has most recently published the commentary The Letter of Aristeas (Walter de Gruyter, 2015), which transmits the earliest form of the legend about the translation of the Hebrew Pentateuch into Greek. He is currently working on a commentary on Ben Sira.
Moderation: Professor Dr. Stefan Beyerle