Receptions of Paul during the First Two Centuries: Exploration of the Jewish Matrix of Early Christianity

It is our pleasure to invite you for the third consecutive Bratislava conference focusing on Pauline research in its historical context (Paul within Judaism perspective). The conference is part of the project “The Early Reception of Paul in the Corpus of New Testament Writings,” which is funded by the Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy of Sciences (VEGA 1/0188/22), for the years 2022–2024.

We intend to follow the current findings of the historical-critical approach to Paul’s message as part and parcel of the Second Temple Judaism, aiming to implement them to another significant topic, which is the early reception of Paul in the corpus of the New Testament, and other Jewish and early Christian literature that originated in the period of, respectively after the First Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire (66–70 CE). The research goal of the project is to better understand and evaluate objectively, and in the historical context, the way Paul’s Jewish heritage was received, including the specifics of contemporary Jewish phenomenon, particularly how it was reflected within the successive generations of Jesus-followers during the first two centuries CE (in and outside the corpus of New Testament writings), including the implications for the development of the Jesus movement, as well as of early Christian-Jewish relations in the following period.

The conference will take place in the last but one week of September 2022 in Bratislava (Comenius University Bratislava, 19 to 22 September 2022). For this year the meeting will occur online as a virtual gathering via MS Teams since the expected development of the Covid-19 pandemic in Slovakia, as well as the geopolitical situation due to the war in Ukraine is uncertain and could cause logistic difficulties with an in-person meeting.

Registration form: https://forms.office.com/r/SJG33ji1EJ

For more information, contact the conference organizer, František Ábel (abel@fevth.uniba.sk).

Best regards from Bratislava Slovakia,

František Ábel, Imre Peres
Department of New Testament
Evangelical Lutheran Theological Faculty
Comenius University Bratislava, Slovakia

Conference Programme (download PDF)

Bratislava Conference 2022 — Paper Abstracts (download PDF)

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2022: 

14:00 – 14:15 

Opening

František Ábel, Maroš Nicák

14:15 – 19:45 – Session One: Knowing What’s What in the Early Reception of Paul the Apostle

Chair: Ondrej Prostredník

14:15 – 15:15 

James H. Charlesworth, Princeton Theological Seminary, USA 

Correcting Some Misperceptions About Paul

15:15 – 16:15 

Michael Bachmann, University of Siegen, Germany 

Observations on the Reception of the Pauline Expression “works of the law”

16:15 – 17:15

J. Brian Tucker, Moody Theological Seminary, Plymouth, USA 

The Perception of Paul’s Social Influence in the Corinthian Correspondence

17:15 – 17:45

Break

17:45 – 18:45

Paul B. Duff, George Washington University, USA 

John’s Reading or “Jezebel’s”: The Contested Reception of 1 Corinthians in the Late First Century

18:45 – 19:45

Joshua Garroway, Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, USA 

The Triumph of Paul in Portraits of Peter

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2022: 

13:30 – 14:00

Informal gathering of participants

14:00 – 19:30 – Session Two: The Early Reception of Paul the Apostle in the Deutero-Pauline Letters

Chair: Maros Nicak

14:00 – 15:00 

Stefan Krauter, University of Zürich, Switzerland 

The Pastoral Epistles and the Jewish Paul

15:00 – 16:00

Kathy Ehrensperger, University of Potsdam, Germany 

Teaching and Learning and the Role of Women – Pauline Trajectories in Acts and the Pastorals?

16:00 – 17:00

Karl Olav Sandnes, MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society, Norway 

The Colossian “Philosophy” and Torah: Paul in a New Context

17:00 – 17:30

Break

17:30 – 18:30

Kenneth Atkinson, University of Northern Iowa, USA 

The “Man of Lawlessness” as an Eschatological Enemy in Second Thessalonians and its Second Temple Period Jewish Background

18:30 – 19:30

Neil Elliott, Independent Scholar, USA

The Quintessence of Pauline Deracination

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2022: 

13:30 – 14:00 

Informal gathering of participants

14:00 – 19:30 – Session Three: The Early Reception of Paul the Apostle in the Acts of the Apostles

Chair: Kenneth Atkinson

14:00 – 15:00

Jiří Lukeš, Charles University Prague, Czech Republic 

From Pharisee to Ascetic. The Shift of the Image of the Apostle Paul in the Literature of the Genre of Acts

15:00 – 16:00

Ruben A. Bühner, University of Zürich, Switzerland 

Paul’s Torah Observance According to Acts in Light of Recent Reconfigurations of Paul’s Jewishness

16:00 – 17:00

Istvan Ledan, Debrecen Reformed Theological University, Hungary 

The Image of Paul in Act’s Speeches

17:00 – 17:30 Break: Michal Kuropka, Natural wines from Slovakia (Presentation)

17:30 – 18:30

Valéria Terézia Dančiaková, Comenius University Bratislava, Slovakia 

Charges against Paul in Acts 16:21: The Term τό ἔθος in the Context of Roman Law

18:30 – 19:30

Gabriele Boccaccini, University of Michigan, USA 

The Reception of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2022:

13:30 – 14:00

Informal gathering of participants

14:00 – 17:30 – Session Four: The Other Receptions of Paul the Apostle

Chair: Miroslav Kocúr

14:00 – 15:00

Eric Noffke, Facoltà Valdese di Teologia, Roma, Italy 

How Pauline is the Gospel of John?

15:00 – 16:00

Pavel Paluchník, Evangelical Theological Seminary of Prague, Czech Republic 

The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Consoling Appeal to Ostracized Jewish Christians (and non-Christian Jews) in the Roman Empire?

16:00 – 17:00

František Ábel, Comenius University Bratislava, Slovakia 

Παύλου συμμύσται ἐστε. Ignatius’ Reception of Paul and Jewishness in the Antiochean Context: Another Piece of Mosaic

17:00 – 17:30

Final evaluation of the conference