This seminar, co-sponsored by the Faculty of Theology and Religion, is the flagship seminar of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament subject area in Oxford. It runs each term and hosts an international array of scholars in the field of Biblical Studies. The seminar is attended by a variety of faculties across the University of Oxford. Students and faculty members participate in discussions during the formal sessions, as well as in more informal discussions each week after the seminars.
Trinity Term 2026
Weeks 1-4, 6, & 8, Mondays, 14:30–17:00
Harris Seminar Room (Oriel College)
Convened by Hindy Najman
Week 1 (Monday, 27 and Thursday, 30 April)
No session: Conference ‘My Tongue is the Pen of a Skillful Scribe’: Poetics, Performance, and Philology, 26–27 April.
Thursday, 30 April: Oxbridge Day, Divinity Faculty, University of Cambridge. Graduate organizers for Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: Ruthanne Brooks and Rahel Lampérth.
Week 2 (Monday, 4 May)
Event with Kathryn Stevens (Corpus Christi, Oxford), Babylonian Chronographic Texts from the Hellenistic Period (2025), 14:30-17:00 (Harris Seminar Room, reception to follow)
Week 3 (Monday, 11 May)
Meron Piotrkowski (Wolfson College, Oxford), ‘And you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land’(Leviticus 25:10): Sovereignty and Identity in Jewish Coinage from the Hasmoneans to the Revolts
Week 4 (Monday, 18 May)
Guy Stiebel (Tel Aviv University), ‘There is a New Thing Under the Sun:’ Recent finds from the Excavations at Masada
Week 6 (Monday, 1 June)
Orit Peleg-Barkat (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), ‘A Song of Ascents…Let Us Go to the House of the LORD’ (Psalm 122:1): Ascending to the Temple in Late Second Temple Period Jerusalem
Week 8 (Monday, 15 June)
Avishai Bar-Asher (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), ‘To Gaze at the King and the Throne’: Heavenly Chanting, Ritual Magic, and Prayer in Late Antique Visionary Literature (the Hekhalot Literature)
Consult the Oriel College porter’s lodge for the 4-digit code to enter the Harris Seminar Room.
For any enquiries, please write to ocsb@oriel.ox.ac.uk.
For programme updates, please see the website: https://www.centreforbible.oriel.ox.ac.uk/events/hebrew-bible-old-testament-seminar/.