Blockveranstaltung: Legal Procedures in the New Testament in Light of Jewish and Roman Law: Between Jurisprudence and Theology - Details

Blockveranstaltung: Legal Procedures in the New Testament in Light of Jewish and Roman Law: Between Jurisprudence and Theology - Details

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General information

Course name Blockveranstaltung: Legal Procedures in the New Testament in Light of Jewish and Roman Law: Between Jurisprudence and Theology
Subtitle Kooperation der Universitäten Halle, Jerusalem und Zürich
Semester WiSe 2025/26
Current number of participants 9
Home institute Theologische Fakultät
Courses type Blockveranstaltung in category Offizielle Lehrveranstaltungen
First date Monday, 26.01.2026 08:00 - 20:00, Room: (Stiftung LEUCOREA in Lutherstadt Wittenberg)
Lehrsprache(n) Englisch
SWS 2
Miscellanea Kooperation der Universitäten Halle, Jerusalem und Zürich

Prof.in Orit Malka (Historische Rechtswissenschaft, Talmud, Hebrew University), Prof.in Ulrike Babusiaux (Römisches Recht, Universität Zürich), Prof. Stefan Krauter (Neues Testament, Religionswissenschaft, Universität Zürich), Prof.in Annette Weissenrieder (Neues Testament)

Rooms and times

(Stiftung LEUCOREA in Lutherstadt Wittenberg)
Monday, 26.01.2026 - Wednesday, 28.01.2026 08:00 - 20:00

Comment/Description

The New Testament is rich in legal contexts: it recounts criminal trials (such as the trials of Jesus and Paul), presents rules for the resolution of civil disputes (Matt 18:15–18; 1 Cor 6:1–8), regulates disciplinary procedures (1 Tim 5:19–21), and describes the final judgment in which justice will be fulfilled (Rom 2:1–11). In addition, it deals extensively with the structure of the early Christian community, its organization, and its internal legal procedures. These materials from the New Testament derive their significance from two central legal frameworks of antiquity: rabbinic Halakha and Roman law.
The seminar, conducted in an integrated interdisciplinary format by specialists in the New Testament, tannaitic law, and Roman law, will focus on the themes of legal procedure and communal structure. While the topic is too broad to be fully covered in a single course, the seminar will demonstrate the value of an interdisciplinary approach by undertaking an in-depth intertextual study of materials from these different traditions. Questions of legal procedure and political community structure will serve as case studies for exploring the broader interrelations among the corpora.
Following an introduction to the relevant legal literatures, the seminar will proceed in the format of close reading and textual discussion of selected sources from the New Testament, rabbinic literature (with emphasis on the Mishnah and the Tosefta), the Jewish historian Josephus, and Roman law. Through this comparative analysis, students will gain deeper insight into the legal traditions reflected in the New Testament and, more broadly, into how intertextual study can illuminate the complex relationships among the three corpora and their mutual influence within the shared cultural space of the Mediterranean. Furthermore, students will be exposed to the ways in which ancient texts reflect the intricate dialogue between law and theology, as well as between religious ideas and the governance of society.