Jürgen Zangenberg is professor for the History and Culture of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity.

More information about Jürgen Zangenberg

His research focuses on the place of early Jewish and early Christian societies within the ancient Mediterranean world. Zangenberg places particular emphasis on the role of material culture in the reconstruction of the socio-historical context of these religions. Between 2008 and 2018, Zangenberg and colleagues from the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland and the US undertook the first excavations on the Galilean hill of Horvat Kur, where a synagogue and houses from the period between 300 and 650 AD have been exposed. A large number of Leiden and international students from various programs participated in these excavations. The publication process of the finds is now underway. Zangenberg publishes widely on ancient Jewish groups such as Samaritans or the early Jesus movement and their literature as well as the archeology of ancient Jerusalem, Galilee or the Dead Sea region; he often appears in podcasts and occasionally on TV.

Research

Many different cultures shaped what we now call the Ancient Mediterranean World. Next to Greeks and Romans, Jews and Christians deeply influenced our Western way of perceiving ourselves and the many worlds around us. As Professor for The History and Culture of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, my research focuses on the place of ancient Jewish communities in the Greco-Roman context, their self-definition as cultural and ethnic minority, their literature and material culture, and on how early Christianity originated from its Jewish and Greco-Roman matrix and slowly developed its peculiar way of life and thought.

Material culture always needs to play an important role in this context, above all research in places and regions like Jerusalem, Rome, Qumran, the Galilee or Samaria with their many cultures, but also in social-religious institutions such as early churches or ancient synagogues. It is a particular privilege to have been able to excavate a hitherto almost unexplored Galilean village with its synagogue together with students and colleagues from Leiden, Bern, Helsinki Universities, Wofford College and the University of Oklahoma, as well as many other volunteers from all over the world in the context of Kinneret Regional Project. Excavations on Horvat Kur are now finished, but work continues – not only field work with students on Tel Kinrot, a neighboring Brone- and Iron-Age settlement on a steep hill overlooking the Lake of Galilee (-> Eertink Rapport), but above all on the desk. Thanks to a sabbatical granted to me by my two Institutes LUCAS and LUIH, I will be able to start writing the final excavation report together with specialists from the excavation staff. The newly founded Leiden Jewish Studies Association, co-directed by prof. Sarah Cramsey and myself, will help to feed in results from my work on Ancient Judaism into the wider teaching and research context at Leiden University and beyond.

C.V.

Other activities

• Member of Societas Novi Testamenti Studiorum, Studiorum Novi Testamenti Conventus, NOSTER, Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft für Theologie, Society of Biblical Literature, American Schools of Oriental Research, European Association for Biblical Studies, Deutscher Verein zur Erforschung Palästinas.
• Extensive archaeological training and fieldwork as member of excavation teams to Callirhoe/Jordan (1986, German Protestant Institute of Archaeology in the Holy Land), Petra/Jordan (1992, Naturhistorische Gesellschaft Nuremberg) as volunteer.
• Staff member with responsibility in teaching, fieldwork and publication in excavations teams to Sepphoris/Israel (1993-1994 and 1996-1997, Prof. Dr. Eric M. Meyers), Tel Kinrot/ Israel (1994, 1998 Prof. Dr. Volkmar Fritz).
• Co-director of Kinneret Regional Project since 2001 ( www.kinneret-excavations.org)
• Director of the excavations at the Roman-Byazantine village at Horvat Kur/Galilee, a sub-project of Kinneret Regional Project, since 2007, in 2010 discovery of a Byzantine synagogue, excavations with colleagues from Bern, Helsinki and Wofford College (USA) (www.kinneret-excavations.org).

Publications