Every two years Septuagint scholars around the world rub their hands in anticipation of one of the best conferences in the discipline. Aside from the lovely location on the heiligen Berg just outside the city, this event provides an ideal size and pace for genuinely useful research presentations and scholarly interaction. That is why people come.

The conference is part of the Forschungsprojekte zur Septuaginta in Deutschland, a research initiative that is responsible for the production of Septuaginta Deutsch (also here) and the ongoing Handbuch zur Septuagint. Another important aspect of this project is the biannual conferences, which also lead to an edited volume. Although the 2016 conference volume is not quite available yet, I am told it will be this year.

The previous Tagungsbänden include:

Die Septuaginta – Texte, Kontexte, Lebenswelten (2006 event)
Die Septuaginta – Texte, Theologien, Einflüsse (2008 event)
Die Septuaginta – Entstehung, Sprache, Geschichte (2010 event)
Die Septuaginta – Text, Wirkung, Rezeption (2012 event)
Die Septuaginta – Orte und Intentionen (2014 event)
Die Septuaginta – Geschichte, Wirkung, Relevanz (2016 event)

I was able to participate in the last one, and it was very valuable. You can read my reflections here.

The 2018 Tagung

This year’s conference will be the seventh, and it is scheduled for 19–22 July at the Kirchliche Hochschule in Wuppertal. It looks like this will be a bigger event than last year, with seventy-five presentations scheduled and room for short papers as well. The theme of the 2018 event is:

Die Septuaginta. Themen – Manuskripte – Wirkungen

On Sunday afternoon, about 1:30 to 6:00 p.m., there will be an excursion to Lennep (an old town in the Bergisches Land with the Roentgen-museum) and to the Altenberger Dom. If you are interested in learning more, you can contact Dr Siegfried Kreuzer (kreuzer@kiho-wb.de).

My Presentation

I’ll be presenting an aspect of my research at the conference. As part of my dissertation survey of literature, I have been chronicling the entire history of Septuagint lexicography. Some doctoral topics (e.g., ‘Paul’ or ‘apocalypse’ etc.) require a huge amount of recent secondary literature survey. But as you can imagine, there is not a whole lot out there on Septuagint lexicography specifically. So naturally I decided “Hey, why not start in 1600?”

The paper I proposed is entitled “Legacies and Flops among Early Modern Septuagint Concordances.” The idea is to examine these early manuscripts, dating from the early 17th-19th centuries, to see what there is to see. I’ll be dealing with some of this in my dissertation, of course, but the paper I’m presenting will be an expanded version focusing on some of the more obscure stuff. Should be fun!