NEW SEMESTER IN JERUSALEM

February 19 signals the end of vacation for students of the École Biblique et Archéologique and the start of the second semester! A studious vacation, during which some students took advantage of the quiet of the library to advance their research, thesis or dissertation. For others, it was a more adventurous time, as they explored the Holy Land in safety, free from groups of tourists.

While students return to their institutions with their heads full of ideas, new references and and shared knowledge, others arrive with new projects to confront with reality. We have no regrets about having stayed on despite the outbreak of war and the events that followed”, says one, thanking the École for having preserved “a serene and promising atmosphere in these troubled times.”

Welcoming new students and researchers means building a new community every time. It begins with a time of exchange, meeting and discovery of the the school. Introduction to the Dominican friars, the teams, the habits and customs of the house, the travel program, etc.

Friar Olivier Poquillon, OP, Director of the School, recalls: “Since 1890, despite the conflicts and crises that have marked the history of this country, the Ébaf has been able to pursue its scientific and spiritual mission of research, sharing and transmission of knowledge. Even today, Ébaf offers you an exceptional and peaceful environment in which to live and work. If you come to study the Bible and archaeology at Saint Stephen’s Convent, if you continue to research and write, you will be contributing at your own level to the development of the Holy Land, to the understanding of faith and to the development of science. Our mission is here, in Jerusalem. It is in this unique setting that, together with visiting researchers and pilgrims, you are called upon to write with us a page in this long history.”

 


A SEMESTER AT THE ÉCOLE BIBLIQUE ET ARCHÉOLOGIQUE FRANÇAISE DE JÉRUSALEM, WORTH IT

Simon Naveau, from the Université Catholique de Louvain, writing his thesis; Vincent van Geirt, Sr Anuarite Muadi Kanda fsp. and Charles-Édouard Hartmann, exchange students at the Pontifical Biblical Institute: witness to a fruitful first semester in Jerusalem.

Dominic Mendonca, OP and Anuarite Muadi Kanda, FSP.

They are unanimous: the working environment at Ébaf is exceptional. Despite the war in Gaza, Simon has found much serenitý in being able to study peacefully in the library. “The brothers at the School have managed to preserve a setting conducive to study and to be attentive to researchers in these uncertain times.” Vincent is also deeply satisfied with the working conditions in which he has evolved since September: “the library is remarkable. It’s one of the biggest Bible libraries in the world, and I’ve really enjoyed working and studying here. I was able to finish my memoir on time and with peace of mind.” Sister Anuarite is grateful for the attentive ear she found with her teachers and for their advice and encouragement in her research work.

Coming to Ébaf also means living in community with the Dominican friars. Simon emphasizes “the benevolence of the convent brothers and the calm you can find by rubbing shoulders with them on a daily basis”. For Charles-Édouard, this community life is spiritually uplifting: “For the Dominicans of Jerusalem, the holy places are their living environment. By living alongside them, we become part of the millennia of prayer in these places, and we participate in it”. As for Vincent, he was touched by these Dominicans, “edifying in their willingness to be brothers and in their efforts to form a community.”

Vincent continues: “Between students and volunteers, we also form a community even if we have very varied intellectual and spiritual backgrounds and come from very different horizons. Paradoxically, perhaps the war has helped us in this. Adversitý on the outside has welded our group together and helped uś to live together.” Charles-Edouard confirms his point, adding that the atmosphere is excellent: “that’s part of what’s strong about what I’ve experienced at the School. Spending this semester as a group, sharing quality time with people who want to have the same experiences is wonderful.” Sister Anuarite explains having made encounters she won’t soon forget: “I’ve experienced some superb moments of fraternity at the School.”

From left to right : Simon Naveau, Charles-Édouard Hartmann and Vincent van Geirt

 


IN MEMORIAM ÉTIENNE NODET, OP, (1944-2024)

The Dominican friars and members of the École Biblique et Archéologique Française de Jérusalem pay tribute to the memory of Brother Étienne Nodet, OP, who died on February 4, 2024 in Jerusalem.

Born in 1944 in Bourg-en-Bresse, the birthplace of Father Lagrange, his entry into the Dominican Order in 1967, and his arrival at the École Biblique in 1977, seemed an obvious choice. A polytechnician with a master’s degree in philosophy and theology and a BA in Talmud, Brother Étienne was a brilliant polymath.

During his novitiate in Lyon, he discovered biblical exegesis, which he left to study in depth at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1974. He joined the House of Isaiah of the Dominican Province of France, west of the city. There, he studied Israeli society and developed a passion for the history of ancient Judaism. Étienne tackled his major work: translating, contextualizing, explaining and annotating the Jewish Antiquities of Flavius Josephus. Inspired by rabbinic literature, he was one of the first to reinvent the way the Bible was edited, convinced of the richness of a comparative reading of the different biblical sources and their reception. Today, this intuition inspires La Bible en Ses Traditions research program. A disconcerting and provocative spirit, he never refrains from exploring new paths, from the Samaritans to the Essenes, via a new translation of the Bible. Workaholic and extremely rigorous, Étienne is remembered by all as an original and passionate man.

When he arrived at Ébaf, he was put in charge of topographical surveys and criss-crossed the country in his Jeep, driving through desert and abandoned tracks to discover archaeological and biblical sites. A visionary in many respects, he was the first at Ébaf to use a laptop computer to prototype a new keyboard containing every conceivable variety of symbol, enabling students and researchers to write in ancient Greek!

“I read Scripture in faith”, Stephen told his community. A historical-critical exegete, he lived to the end the tension between the aridity of reason and his witness to a “living God”. Through his commitment as a brother preacher with the Neocatechumenal Way and his work with the Ratisbonne Institute, he bore witness to his profound humanity.

The Convent of Saint-Étienne and the École Biblique et Archéologique Française pay tribute to Étienne Nodet, a free spirit, demanding and full of humor. He devoted all his time and energy to living the Word of God and passing it on to generations of students. His sudden death leaves a huge void in the world of research.
Interview by Emeline d’Hautefeuille, Communications Officer
Article photos: Ébaf, Ordo Praedicatorum
Header photo: Ébaf photo library


A FORMER STUDENT COMING BACK AS ADMINISTRATOR OF THE ÉCOLE

A few days before Christmas, Brother Kevin Stephens OP, joined Jerusalem as an administrator of Ebaf and a trustee of St. Stephen convent. He takes over from Brother Stanislaw Gurgul OP, who joins the Dominican convent of Geneva.

Brother Kevin comes from the province of Saint Albert the Great in the United States. Perfectly bilingual, he learned French at school, and practiced it a lot in the refectory of St. Stephen’s convent! As a computer scientist, an actor and a biblical scholar, he is not at the École biblique et archéologique française of Jérusalem for the first time. He joined the Dominicans in 2001, after ten years spent in a semi-professional theatre company where, among other things, he directed Robert Schenkkan’s “Kentucky Cycle” (winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize) and acted in Corneille’s “L’Illusion comique”.
Ordained a priest in 2008, he studied for his Sacred Scripturies Licence at Ébaf from 2008 to 2012, before defending his doctoral thesis on the nudity of Isaiah in 2019. Since 2008, he has been part of the Bible in its Traditions research programme. “You could say I wrote the BEST website,” he smiles. Until his arrival, he also taught Old Testament at the Aquinas Institute of Theology (Saint Louis, Missouri).

In March 2023, he received the announcement, of his assignment to Jerusalem as a surprise, but a “surprise that makes sense”. His background as a computer scientist and his many stays at the École biblique et archéologique française will be just some of the assets he will need to succeed Brother Stanislaw. Relieved to have finally arrived after four postponements due to the war, Brother Kevin confides that he is deeply happy to be back living in Jerusalem and serving Ébaf – “my second home”. Being reunited with the brothers, the local culture and the atmosphere of this corner of the Middle East, with its smells, tastes, faces and shared stories that he left four years ago, give this new stage its full meaning.

1910, the procurator in his office, with the postal scale in the background

Brother Kevin, with the postal scale, inherited from brother Stanislaw

Photos: Ébaf, photothèque and Charlotte Desachy
Interview by ChD


THE EVE OF THE START OF THE SCHOOL UNDER SAINT JEROME’S PATRONAGE

The new ÉBAF students and volunteers for the 2023-2024 academic year prepared for their new school year by walking in the footsteps of Saint Jerome. On Saturday, two days before the start of the new academic year at ÉBAF, they walked from Jerusalem to Bethlehem! A ten-kilometre walk to place themselves under the patronage of Saint Jerome, and prepare to delve deeper into the mysteries of the Bible in the town where he spent the last 30 years of his life.

The procession left Jerusalem on Saturday morning and headed for the centre of Bethlehem for lunch, before visiting the site and celebrating mass in the grotto of Saint Jerome, located beneath the Basilica of the Nativity.

Jerome of Stridon (347-30 September 420) was chosen by Pope Damasus I to translate the Gospels into Latin, while remaining as close as possible to the Greek and Hebrew texts.
The Vulgate, composed mainly of his translations – supplemented by pieces of the Vetus Latina – was the first text printed in Europe by Gutenberg.
Jerome is considered one of the four Latin Fathers of the Church, a Doctor of the Church. The Vulgate was authoritative in the Catholic Church until 1979, when the Neo-Vulgate was published under John Paul II.

Saint Jerome’s altar


EXHIBITION: THE IMPRESSIONS OF A 19-YEAR-OLD FRENCH IN JERUSALEM IN 1864

Left: Porte des Lions, Jerusalem, 1865 (photo : EBAF)

From 11 to 18 September 2023, we showed 22 photographs from our collection at the Atrium Saint-Germain (headquarters of the Barnabé network) in Paris, to mark the digital publication of Frank de Jerphanion’s Diary, Voyage en Orient, 1864, now freely available on Bible World.

Exhibition at the Atrium (Paris), Barnabé network’s headquarters

The photographs showed predate the founding of the École Biblique, illustrating an unprecedented manuscript by a 19-year-old Frenchman who landed in Jaffa in 1864 and travelled through the Holy Land, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Constantinople. They have been selected to give the best possible account of what the young pilgrim discovered with his own eyes, and recounted in his diary.

Jérusalem by Philipps, 1867 (photo: ÉBAF)

The book is made up of Frank de Jerphanion’s impressions and the letters he and his brother wrote to their families during their trip. It offers a valuable insight into how a young Frenchman might have seen the Middle East in 1864.

Jean-Michel de Tarragon, op, et Dominique Trimbur

The exhibition was organised by Alice de Rambuteau, Frank de Jerphanion’s great-great-granddaughter. Dominique Trimbur, associate researcher at the Centre de Recherches Français de Jérusalem, and Friar Jean-Michel de Tarragon, op, introduced the work and the collection of photographs digitised by the latter and prepared using Photoshop by Serge Nègre.


“I am a proud élève de l’École!”

Fr. Eugen J. Pentiuc is an Orthodox Archpriest under the canonical jurisdiction of Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in America, and a Professor of Old Testament and Semitic languages. He holds The Archbishop Demetrios Chair of Biblical Studies and Christian Origins at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts, USA.

What is your relationship to École?

 First, allow me to extend my heartfelt thanks to Fr. Jean-Jacques Pérennès, Director of École Biblique et archéologique française, its leadership and all the Dominican brothers for inviting me to be the “scholar-in-residence” at École for the summer of 2023. It is a great honor for me and my school, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, MA!

I was born in Romania where I did my licentiate and doctoral studies at Bucharest Institute of Orthodox Theology. In 1984, with a student scholarship provided by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, I came to École Biblique where I worked under the academic guidance of professors Tournay and Gonçalves on the book of Hosea. After two years of study. I got the diploma of Élève Titulaire and finished my first doctoral dissertation, a commentary on Hosea, that I defended at my home institution, since at that time the Ecole did not grant the doctoral degree. The dissertation was published by Holy Cross Press, 2002 and 2008, under the title Long-Suffering Love: A Commentary on Hosea with Patristic Annotations.

I came to know and academically benefit from great teachers and scholars of École, such as, the late Langlamet, Boismard and O’Connor, and also Nodet, de Tarragon, Puech, Humbert… And I am so glad to see how their legacy continues today with young and energetic scholars engaged in so many exciting projects.

What followed in your life and career after the Ecole phase?

 In spring of 1990, a few months after the downfall of the communist regime, I moved to the States as parish priest of an Orthodox Romanian-American community in Southbridge, Massachusetts.

However, my love for biblical Hebrew, whose knowledge was deepened during my stay at École (another reason why this school is so dear to my heart!).  So, I determined to apply for a doctoral program at Harvard University, in the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department, where I concentrated on Comparative Semitic Philology. Under the academic guidance of Professor John Huehnergard, I worked on reconstructing the Emarite dialect of Akkadian, a doctoral dissertation which was immediately published under the tile West Semitic Vocabulary in Akkadian Texts from Emar in the series Harvard Semitic Studies (2001).

Did you have any contacts with École during the American phase?

 Yes! Beginning with 2010, I came to École almost on the other year. This was the period when I came to know my close friend Olivier-Thomas Venard. Under his leadership and the auspices of École and its famous series La Bible en ses traditions (B.E.S.T.), I worked as a team leader and main author on the commentary on Hosea published by Peeters Press in 2017 under the title Hosea: The Word of the Lord that Happened to Hosea.

What are your current projects, recently completed or ongoing?

 I have recently been researching and writing in three areas: Bible, Semitic languages, and theology in a wide ecumenical context.

Since 2014, I published three books with Oxford University Press in the area of Byzantine Orthodox reception of the Bible: The Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition, Hearing the Scriptures: Liturgical Exegesis of the Old Testament in Byzantine Orthodox Hymnography, and The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Orthodox Christianity (for which Olivier-Thomas Venard contributed with a piece on the B.E.S.T. project).

What is the current project are you working on?

 I am currently doing research and writing on a project of Orthodox biblical theology, under contract with Oxford University Press, entitled Old Testament Theology: Reading the Hebrew Bible in Conversation with St. Basil Anaphora. With this volume, I continue my work on Byzantine reception of the Bible, this time imagining a dialogue between the Hebrew Bible (i.e., the Hebrew text and rhetoric of the Bible) and the doctrinal theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church, encapsulated to a certain degree in St. Basil’s Anaphora as well as other Byzantine patristic and liturgical texts.

If you are asked to sum up in a few words the main rationale for which you come and stay with us, what that rationale would be?

 I heard people saying, and I totally agree, that the fantastic library is a gem world-wide in terms of Bible and languages. This is very true!  Nevertheless, for me personally, there are two main reasons that I periodically come and do my work here:

  1. the hospitality of the Dominican friars and the opportunity to meet students and scholars—they all constitute an academic environment so needy when you do your research and writing; the learning here becomes contagious;
  2. the spirituality of this sacred place. Few people coming to Holy Land realize that St. Etienne Basilica is more than a modern Church. It is actually a locus sanctus where, Bible, history, and learning meet together.

For me just knowing that I am a few yards away from the place where Holy Byzantine Empress Eudocia built a basilica to shelter the remains of the First Marty St. Stephen—church consecrated in AD 439 by St. Cyril of Jerusalem, is a great opportunity to connect with those memorable times, renewed by Pere Lagrange in 1900 with the erection of the current basilica—a place of prayer and tranquility that in today troublesome world is so hard to fine.

In conclusion, I would underscore the following points:

The school formed me as a biblical exegete interested in striking a balance between our common patristic interpretive tradition and modern biblical methodologies.

The school inspired me through my scholarly journey—many of my publications have been partly prepared here.

The school has been for decades one of my sacred places that I love dearly!

I can honestly say that I am a proud ancient élève de l’École!

 

 

 

 


FROM JERUSALEM TO PERSEPOLIS, A YEAR’S RESEARCH INTO THE PERSIAN EMPIRE

Mitchka Shahryari has been selected by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres to spend an academic year at the EBAF, as part of her thesis on the following subject: “Research into the Persian institutional landscape in Achaemenid Transeuphratene: the Aramaic ostraca of Idumaea”.
Starting in 2019, she should complete her thesis during 2024. Here’s a look back over the last few months:

The geographical area of Transeuphratene corresponds to part of the Levant, which includes parts of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Palestine. So it was a logical step for this keen student to set down her bags in Jerusalem.
Mitchka remembers many things about this experience: “This year here has really enabled me to work intensively on my research in a setting that is particularly conducive to great progress. I enjoyed meeting the leading researchers in my field within the walls of the school, the library, as well as the topography courses to contextualise my subject and visit the archaeological sites in my corpus.
The latter enabled me to get to grips with the country, to discover it through its history and archaeology, and to become aware of space. I was also able to meet specialists from outside the school, through conferences and symposiums”.

If you take a quick look back at her year, you’d be impressed!
As a candidate in the “3minutes Pitch” competition organised by SGroup Network, a competition aimed at doctoral students on an international scale, she won first prize in October 2022 in Portugal (link to the competition replay).
The aim of the competition is to present your thesis topic to a non-specialist audience in 3 minutes flat and in English, of course! A great performance.
We headed to Egypt in November for a session studying material from the Tell El-Herr site (post-excavation studies), under the supervision of Catherine Defernez. Then off to Haifa in December 2022 as an auditor at the symposium ‘Yahwism under the Achaemenid empire’ organised by Gad Barnéa.
She will round off her year of study in style with a lecture organised as part of the EBAF Thursdays, in which she will present her thesis topic and methodology to an audience of around thirty people (replay of the lecture).

Studying in Jerusalem has also enabled Mitchka to visit many museums and, above all, to have access to the pieces in her corpus:

“I would like to thank the Bible Land Museum in Jerusalem and the Hecht Museum in Haifa for giving me access to their collections. Having access to this material is an incredible opportunity.

As well as the professional experience, it was also a rich human experience: “I’ll always remember the moments of sharing, the discussions at the table with different people every day, a very strong spirit of solidarity this year, thanks to the beautiful people and the wonderful moments shared.
My intense personal work sessions were punctuated by times for meeting and exchanging ideas, whether at meals or over tea with fellow researchers. It’s a great way to keep the conversation going in a stimulating and friendly atmosphere.”