Veranstaltung: Research Colloquium: Jeremy Barrier “Physiology and Medicine in Earliest Christianity: Further Test Cases in the Gospel of Judas”

“Beyond Canon_” Research Colloquium: this week's guest will be Jeremy Barrier, presenting his studies on “Physiology and Medicine in Earliest Christianity: Further Test Cases in the Gospel of Judas” at the Centre's seminar room in 3.14.

Abstract:
Ancient Medicine, Cosmology and Physiology, in certain respects, can be understood from a cultural-anthropological perspective or even as a social construct. If one digs deeply into the concept of Medicine within the Hellenistic World, a truly fascinating world emerges. Further, earliest Christian texts seem to adopt, accommodate, and incorporate many of these concepts from ancient Medicine uncritically and unreflectively into the burgeoning theological conceptions that are present within their texts. Thus, if one were to analyze early Christian texts through the cultural-anthropological-medical lens and comprehend the theology as a byproduct of this perspective, then what would one find? In this essay, I am providing a test case found within the Gnostic Christian corpus of writings, namely the Gospel of Judas, where the theology becomes comprehensible when one understands ancient Hellenistic medicine. The significance of using this type of lens is that it allows researchers to examine various strands of the earliest Christian texts from the first three centuries, and see clearly how they have a shared physiological/medical ‘system’ that ties their theological concepts together. This study of unpublished material is building upon other studies that I have previously published in hopes of showing further the shared similarities between early Christian texts that have historically been separated out as canonical, non-canonical, apocryphal, orthodox, heretical, and so forth.

Online participation via Zoom (externer Link, öffnet neues Fenster)