Future from the Past: The Contribution of Apocalyptic Concepts of History to Generating Expectations of the Future 
[Zukunft aus der Geschichte: Der Beitrag apokalyptischer Geschichtskonzepte zur Generierung von Zukunftserwartung]

Historical memories play an essential role in ancient Jewish texts assigned to the “apocalyptic” literary genre—whether in the dynamic symbolization of the successions of world empires in the sense of translatio imperii (Dan 2 and 7), in the interpretive relativization of historical memories of Israelite and ancient Jewish historical reassurance (the “Animal Apocalypse” of 1 Enoch 85–90), or in the determination within a time scheme of the locations of one’s own “apocalyptic” existence (1 Enoch 93:1–10; 91:11–17: the “Ten-Week Apocalypse”). While the historical hermeneutics of these sources have been well researched to the present day, questions of apocalyptic expectations of the future have generally been addressed only implicitly or in passing.

Prof. Dr. Stefan Beyerle is Professor of Old Testament at the University of Greifswald. Within his work on the cultural-hermeneutical perspectives of Old Testament research, he is co-editor of the series “Theologie – Kultur – Hermeneutik” (with Matthias Petzoldt and Michael Roth) and a member of the “Cultural-Hermeneutical Society.”  Beyerle is currently working on a book project in the field of prophecy and apocalypticism, Die Schrift des Amos in lebensweltlicher Perspektive, as well as on commentaries to Amos and Daniel.

“Do We Have It Under Control?”: Hittites Dealings with the Future
[„Haben wir es im Griff?“ Der Umgang der Hethiter mit der Zukunft]

According to the conceptions by the Hittites, everything that has happened was largely determined by the will and actions of the gods. At the same time, they were convinced of the fact that they could exert influence upon both. An indispensable prerequisite for this was finding out the interests of the gods. The most important means of doing so was questioning the gods via oracles and the recording thereof. This lecture looks into this group of texts in order to shed light on the Hittites’ conceptions of the future and how they dealt with it. Based on this, it then presents further strategies through which the Hittites attempted to shape the future according to their own interests. 

PD Dr. Birgit Christiansen is a private lecturer in the Institute for Assyriology and Hittitology at the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich and scientific leader of the project “The Hittite Corpus of Divinatory Texts: Digital Edition and Cultural Historical Analysis.” Her research foci include the languages and cultures of ancient Anatolia, scribality and orality, the passing down of texts, and divination, magic, cultural praxis, and law. 

Prophetic discourse in a troubled world. A German perspective 

Prophets are contested figures – in the Bible and today. Most of the biblical prophets raise their voice to state what goes wrong in society and to announce an evil end for all. Their prophecy is often a relentless analysis of the present in a specific political and cultural context and an anticipation of its consequences for the future. At the same time, prophecy is always disputed because at the moment of its utterance, the audience does not know whether the prophet is right or wrong. While the biblical prophets ground their authority in a close relationship with God, today’s prophets rely on science, huge amounts of data, and expert knowledge. My paper will link Jeremiah’s message of doom to the discourse initiated by the “Fridays for Future”-activists who pronounce doom if drastic measures against climate change are not taken. For the German context, I suggest that theologians use their theological and thus moral expertise to engage not only in academic debates, but also in public discourses in order to actively participate in shaping the future for our communities in a troubled world. 

Christl M. Maier is Professor of Old Testament at the Philipps University of Marburg. Her research includes the following emphases: Old Testament prophecy and wisdom literature, Jerusalem as a city and a woman, gender relationships and ways of life in ancient Israel, feminist hermeneutics, and postcolonial and trauma-theoretical approaches to the Hebrew Bible. One of her current research projects deals with trauma studies on the book of Jeremiah.

Future and Past in the Conceptions of Time in Ancient Iran
[Futur und Zukunft im Rahmen der Zeitvorstellungen im Alten Iran]

Every life and event takes place in the dimension of time: It comes from the past and progresses into the future. Past and future are not reserved for humans: Animals also live from the memory of the past and in the active preparation for the future. What are specific to the human species, however, are the abstraction, the conceptualization, and the cultural shaping of past and future. Conceptions of the future and that which humanity expects in the future occupy a large part of cultural and religious thought, such as eschatological and end-time conceptions in many religious systems. The linguistic shaping or coding of the future, or conceptions thereof, are in these contexts not generally taken to be relevant or worthy of discussion. When they are, the linguistic expression of the future is assumed to be naturally occurring through the grammatical future tense. This, however, is not actually the case. In some languages, there is no future tense. In other languages, it may exist but is not necessary for expressing future action (so in English: Tomorrow, I am going to the cinema). What does this mean? Is there a relationship between the form/structure of the linguistic expression of the future and the ideas about it? Does the lack of a future tense in a language say something about conceptions of the future in the cultures that express themselves with the language? Linguistics, when informed by cultural history, can make observations about this. This presentation achieves this through examples of the Old and Middle Iranian languages as well as other languages from the larger historical milieu of ancient Iran (Greek, Hebrew, etc.). It proceeds through the following methodological steps:

1) The linguistic-typological approach: How should the lack of a linguistic expression of the future, or it not being necessary, be assessed in linguistic-typological comparison?

2. Linguistic-historical Iranian: How is the future expressed in the Old and Middle Iranian languages? One aspect mentioned here is the development of the Old Iranian subjunctive into a functionally future tense in Old and Middle Iranian.

3. Is there a relationship between the expression of the future tense in Old and Middle Iranian and the corresponding conceptions of time in the Old and Middle Iranian cultures of Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism?

4. Are comparisons with the future tense in other languages from the context of the Old Testament (Greek, Hebrew, Babylonian) possible or meaningful?

Ludwig Paul is Professor of Iranian Studies at the University of Hamburg. His current research takes place within the framework of individual DFG projects such as “Iranian Dialect Literature of the Classical Period: The Philological Indexing of Ancient Ṭabarī (10th–15th centuries CE) and “The Dialectical Position and Linguistic-Historical Development of Gorani, Particularly Its Relationship to Kurdish.” 

“Let me not hear again the voice of YHWH” (Deut 18:16): On the Factor of Time in Old Testament Statements concerning the Possibility of Knowing God
[„Ich möchte die Stimme JHWHs … nicht mehr hören“ (Dtn 18,16). Zum Zeitfaktor in alttestamentlichen Aussagen zur Möglichkeit von Gotteserkenntnis]

The Old Testament scriptures are fundamentally in agreement that YHWH can be recognized; in the details, however, the Old Testament thematizes the possibility of knowing God in very different ways. Essential differences can primarily be seen, for example, in whether or how the factor of time comes into play. In this way, many texts differentiate between various phases in which the knowledge of God can be reached in a better or worse manner or comes about in a more direct or indirect way. And many mention the past and/or the future as aspects that (co-)determine the successful or unsuccessful outcome of the knowledge of God in the present. Oftentimes, all of this is not just a question of the perceptibility of God; rather, such statements are relevant to the arguments of the books as a whole.

Prof. Dr. Annette Schellenberg is a professor in the Institute for Old Testament Studies and Biblical Archaeology at the University of Vienna. Her research foci include the primeval history, Priestly literature, wisdom literature, and the Song of Songs, as well as Old Testament anthropology and the Old Testament and its context. Since 2020, she has been the editor-in-chief of Vetus Testamentum.