Research Focuses

The research focus deals with the question of the participation of New Testament scholarship in the overall theological responsibility.

The theological-historical momentous fusion of the theological paradigm into a historical-philological paradigm since the Enlightenment has to be dealt with. It even affects the literary genre "theology of the New Testament".

In dealing with the theological drafts in the New Testament, the aim is to go beyond the description of the textual self-understanding of the various writings and to bring up the relationship to God expressed in them as the enduring horizon of a theologically oriented exegesis.

Sub-areas and aspects of the research topic:

• Preliminary decisions in the history of theology during the Enlightenment.
• History of New Testament scholarship from the 18th-21st centuries
• "Theology of the New Testament" as a literary genre
• The origin of the Easter faith
• Theology of the Synoptic Gospels

In the course of an exegetical tradition committed to the concern of "demythologizing" New Testament preaching, the perception of mythical phenomena in the New Testament has largely receded into the background.

On the basis of the recognition of a rationality inherent in myth, the research focus "Myth and Rationality" is fundamentally concerned with regaining an optic for mythical features in the New Testament. The differentiated use of mythical elements by the New Testament writers is examined. The relationship between ancient-mythical and modern-analytical rationality, which is of central importance for the elaboration of New Testament theology, is also the subject of this research area.

Subfields and aspects of the research topic:

• The relationship between myth and rationality
• The myth and the genre of the Gospels
• "Miracle" narratives and mythical sequences
• The myth in Mark and Luke
• Mythography and demythicization
• Rationality and Theology in the New Testament

The research focus deals with the reception of the Hellenistic heritage by early Christianity using the example of the Gospel of Luke.

The work is situated at the interface between topics of ancient history and Hellenistic studies and New Testament scholarship. It can be connected to questions of modern anthropology, for example with regard to the discussion about the image of man in the modern life sciences.

Subfields and aspects of the research topic:

• The influence of ancient historiography and biography on the shaping of Luke's Gospel.
• The reception of ancient poetics in the Gospel of Luke
• Mythography in the Gospel of Luke
• The understanding of "theoria" in Hellenistic Judaism and in the Gospel of Luke
• The relationship between Hellenistic and early Christian anthropology
• The relationship between modern anthropological conceptions and Hellenistic-influenced early Christian approaches.