In the last session of the English German Colloqiuim on the New Testament for the 2023-2024 winter semester, the Institut zur Erforschung des Urchristentums and the Evangelisch-Theologische Fakultät der Universität Tübingen was happy to host Dr. Matan Orian of Tel Aviv University, currently a visiting scholar at the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum of the University of Münster.
Dr. Orian, whose research interests focus on the Jewish view of non-Jews in the Second Temple period, lectured on the Jewish concept of “Gentile impurity” in the Second Temple period, as reflected in the writings of Josephus, the Dead Sea Scrolls and several texts of the New Testament, including the Gospels of John and Luke, Acts of the Apostles, and a number of Pauline letters. In his lecture, titled “Paul and Luke-Acts on Circumcision and Gentile Impurity,” Dr. Orian drew a connection between the Jewish view of non-Jews as impure and the debate, in the early church, over the requirement of circumcision from non-Jewish Christian believers, thus offering a possible explanation for the centrality of this debate in the pertinent NT texts.
