DFG Research Group 5494 "Epistemology of the Divine"
DFG Research Group 5494, ‘Epistemology of the Divine’, examines the history of ideas in ancient Israel and explores the content and processes through which the divine was conceived, preserved in memory, documented and disseminated. To this end, biblical and extra-biblical texts, as well as the material culture of the southern Levant in the 1st millennium BCE, are examined in their respective contexts with regard to constructions of knowledge about the divine and the underlying thought structures and patterns. Drawing on these sources and their diverse perspectives, the project adopts an interdisciplinary approach aimed at identifying and reconstructing religious actors, ancient socio-epistemic communities, centres and networks, whilst simultaneously analysing and profiling their environments, regional and socio-historical contexts, dynamics and ideas.
Based in Wuppertal is Sub-project 3 , ‘Visible Daily: Towards an Epistemology of the Divine Mediated through Images’ (Project Leader: PD Dr Thomas Wagner). This sub-project investigates the mediation of knowledge constructions of the divine through stamp and cylinder seals as the first mass media. The seals are understood as external manifestations of religious thought and as a medium for conveying a model of reality. Images serve to manifest both ideas and social structures, and their increasing dissemination creates spheres of influence and knowledge. Based on these assumptions, the project aims to map epistemic centres and the networks emanating from them in relation to local social and economic conditions, land use, settlement patterns, trade and communication routes. In this way, the connections between the mediation of knowledge constructions through signs/symbols/motifs, the resulting norms, the relationship of the individual artefact to the local and regional iconography, and thus their local interpretations, are made visible.
