Hellenization, Romanization, Humanization: The Formation of an Abrahamic Religion Within the Framework of Western European Culture

Type: 
Lecture
Audience: 
Open to the Public
Building: 
Nador u. 13
Room: 
Room 001
Wednesday, May 22, 2013 - 5:30pm
Add to Calendar
Date: 
Wednesday, May 22, 2013 - 5:30pm to 7:00pm

The CEU Center for Religious Studies in cooperation with the Rector ’s Office

invite you to join us for 

The fifth lecture in the Rector's Lecture Series: Comparative Approaches to Abrahamic Religions

A lecture by 

Hubert Cancik (Basel)

Hellenization, Romanization, Humanization: The Formation of an Abrahamic Religion within the framework of Western European Culture


Abstract:

The topic of this lecture is the formation of an Abrahamic religion – the Christianismós – in its historical context, that is, in the Western - the Latin - part of the Roman Empire and its legacy.

The forces which shaped this Jewish reform movement to become the Roman Catholic Church and, later, the Reformed (Protestant) Churches are, boldly, labelled Hellenization, Romanization, and, for modern times, Humanization.

The specific way, in which Western culture received, modified, used the ancient heritage implies the conservation, or further development of, non-religious segments of cultural and public life (the arts, law, ethics, the sciences, history, the educational system, human rights, and freedom of religion).

These segments contributed to as well as conditioned the formation of the so-called ‘Abrahamic religion’.

This lecture attempts to display just how much this complex historical process is the central theme of comparative religious history of the Mediterranean and European Christianity. Being concepts created by theology, this process simply cannot be described - or explained - as of ‘Abrahamic origin’ or just another ‘Urgeschichte’ (foundation myth, archaiología).

 

Professor Hubert Cancik was born in 1937 in Berlin. Throughout his career, he taught at Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen until his retirement in 2003. He lectured at both the Catholic Theology faculty as well as the faculty of Cultural Sciences, covering such topics as Introduction to Old Testament Studies, The Classics, The History of Ancient Religions, and the History of Reception and Scholarship.

He has been editor-in-chief and the co-organizer for a variety of research and publication projects including: “Religionsgeschichte Deutschlands“; “Handbuch religionswissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe“; “Der Neue Pauly“ (English edition: Brill's New Pauly Encyclopedia); “Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart“ (English edition: Religion Past & Present).

In 2008, he was awarded the doctor honoris causa of the University of Basle.

Amonst his many publications are: Grundzüge der hethitischen und alttestamentlichen Ge­schichts­schreibung, Wiesbaden 1976; Markus-Philologie. Historische, literargeschichtliche und stilisti­sche Untersuchun­gen zum zweiten Evangelium, Tübingen 1984; Europa – Antike – Humanismus. Humanistische Versuche und Vorarbeiten (ed. Hildegard Cancik-Lindemaier), Bielefeld 2011; Römische Religion im Kontext. Gesammelte Aufsätze I (ed. Hildegard Cancik-Lindemaier), Tübingen 2008; Religionsgeschichten. Gesammelte Aufsätze II (ed. Hildegard Cancik-Lindemaier), Tübingen 2008.