PROGRAMME AND ABSTRACTS - Università degli Studi di Messina

etween Dio (1922), Confesione dei peccati (1929-1936), Onniscienza di Dio (1955) and the
contributions to Numen (1954-1959), relying also on the 3,000 pages of Materiali published
with utmost minutiae in San Giovanni in Persiceto by Mario Gandini during the last three
decades.
Sarah Claerhout, Ghent University, Belgium
Conversion, Religion and the Protestant Reformation
66
Tue 15 th , 11.40, Classroom 8
How could Europeans view religion as a constitutive force in their own society and other
societies, if the concept is so difficult to make sense of? Part of the answer, so my paper will
suggest, is to be found in the dynamics set in motion by the Protestant Reformation, which
shaped the modern concept of religion. On the basis of my research on the process of
conversion in the work of the magisterial reformers, I will argue that the Reformation
established certain conceptual patterns which became pivotal to the modern European cultural
experience. The reformers linked the corruption of religion to the degeneration of society and
this went hand in hand with specific descriptions of both western and non-western societies in
these terms. True faith (on the basis of a new process of inner conversion) and reform of
society (on the basis of a range of normative principles such as equality, toleration, freedom of
conscience) were connected in the same way. My paper will examine this linking of religion
and society in the Reformation and trace its impact on the contemporary study of religion.
Naomi Cohen, University of Tel Aviv, Israel
Tue 15 th , 9.20, Classroom 13
The Haftarot (the lections from Prophets) chosen to be read in the Synagogue Service
While the NT contains the earliest explicit mention of the custom of reading a Haftarah (a
lection from Prophets) following immediately upon the Torah reading on the Sabbath (see Acts
13:15, and Luke 4:17), it is not clear from these whether, or perhaps to what extent, they refer
to what were considered to be traditional pericopes. Today, the Synagogue lections from the
Prophets that follow the Torah reading on Sabbath morning are standardized. Though not all
rites are identical it is clear that they have been chosen with an eye to an associative
connection, whether linguistic, ideational, or something else, with the weekly Torah portion.
{bring examples}. There are however exceptions for special Sabbaths where a reading relating
to the holiday replaces the reading assigned to the relevant Torah portion {expand}. An
important instance of this, are the Haftarah readings for the Sabbaths of ‘Admonition,
Consolation and Repentance’ that belong to the period of mourning for the destruction of the
Temple in Jerusalem (see Zechariah 8:18-19), the weeks of Consolation following it, and those
for the period of Repentance that follow them directly: The Ten Days of Repentance, that
include the New Year and the Day of Atonement. A study of Philo’s very rare quotations from
the Prophets reveals that the vast majority of them are found in these very Haftaroth. This
suggests, prima facie, that they had already been chosen to be read in Philo’s day.
Tue 15 th , 10.00, Classroom 9