FOR 5949:  Epistemology of the Divine: In Search of the Religious Thought Structures/Patterns of Ancient Palestine/Israel

• Subject Area: Humanities
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 554535105

Our research group aims to outline a historical epistemology of the divine in ancient Palestine/Israel of the 1st millennium BCE. We specifically investigate the knowledge constructions about the divine and the thought structures and patterns behind them in their respective contexts. We propose an encompassing perspective on the religious thinking of the societies of the 1st millennium BCE in Palestine/Israel that includes the Old Testament library, extra-biblical texts, and the material sources as external representations of religious thinking and actions. Based on these sources, our interdisciplinary approach (including tools of Digital Humanities) aims to identify and reconstruct ancient religious agencies, socio-epistemic communities, centers, and networks, and to analyze and profile their settings, regional and socio-historical contexts, dynamics and ideas. Our overall aim is to profile the manifold ways in which the epistemology of the divine and thought structures/patterns behind them are encoded in the linguistic and material externalizations, and whether and how these can be grasped and explained by using the epistemic categories of space and time, legitimacy and validity, standardization and negation. The project investigates the knowledge constructions and monistic thought structures/patterns of the divine as "the One" in the Old Testament resulting in monolatry or monotheism, another project investigates the thought structures/patterns reflected in linguistic expressions on the question of YHWH’s knowability, a third project epistemologically traces the knowledge constructions and thought structures/patterns of the divine exemplified in iconographic expressions, and subproject 4 analyzes the knowledge constructions and thought structures/patterns of the divine as they are tangible in the religious architecture and cultic assemblages of Palestine/Israel in regional diversity. As we are concerned with the genesis and dynamics of knowledge constructions about the divine, we not only contribute to the history of knowledge in pre-modern times and the (re-)construction of the thought structures behind it but also aim to provide present research with conceptual alternatives that may significantly transform current debates on thinking the divine today in interreligious dialogue and comparative theology.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• International Connection: Brazil, Israel

Projects

• Coordination Funds (Applicant Dietrich, Jan )
• Daily Visible: Towards an Epistemology of the Divine Mediated Through (the) Pictures (Applicant Wagner, Thomas )
• Epistemic Centers or Networks: Towards an Epistemology of the Divine as the Many (Applicant Berlejung, Angelika )
• Thinking Emerging Monotheism: Towards an Epistemology of the Divine as the One (Applicant Dietrich, Jan )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Jan Dietrich