Prof. Dr. Katell Berthelot
Marko Feingold Distinguished Fellow
Universitätsplatz 1, 5020 Salzburg
Tel.: +43 (0)662 / 8044-2924
E-Mail:
born 1972 in Paris, France
Scientific history:
Research professor at the Research Centre Paul-Albert Février (which is jointly run by the CNRS and the Aix-Marseille University—the latter is part of CIVIS), France, recipient and the principal investigator of an ERC Consolidator Grant for “Judaism and Rome. Re-thinking Judaism’s Encounter with the Roman Empire: Rome’s Political and Religious Challenge to Israel and Its Impact on Judaism (2nd cent. BCE – 4th cent. CE)” (2014-2019).
Before the current position multiple research and visiting fellowships in, for instance, Jerusalem and Yale.
Fulbright research fellowship, the bronze medal of the CNRS, the Irène Joliot-Curie Prize of the French Ministry of Research (“young woman scholar of the year”), the Sophie Barluet Prize of the Centre National du Livre, and the National Jewish Book Award (given by the Jewish Book Council, New York).
Katell Berthelot has been a co-editor of the series La Bibliothèque de Qumrân from 2006 to 2018, and board member of AABNER (Advances in Ancient, Biblical, and Near Eastern Research), Journal of Ancient Judaism, Studia Philonica Annual, etc.
Publications:
Le débat autour de la “misanthropie” des lois juives dans l’Antiquité (Leiden: Brill, 2003)
L’ “Humanité de l’autre homme” dans la pensée juive ancienne (Leiden: Brill, 2004)
Le monothéisme peut-il être humaniste? (Paris: Fayard, 2006),
Jérusalem, historie d’une ville-monde (Paris: Flammarion, 2016; Italian: 2017; English: 2022, co-authored with V. Lemire, j. Loiseau and Y. Potin:)
In Search of the Promised Land? The Hasmonean Dynasty Between Biblical Models and Hellenistic Diplomacy (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018)
Jews and their Roman Rivals: Pagan Rome’s Challenge to Israel (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2021)
Katell Berthelot has an interest in the history of the Jews and of Judaism in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. She works intensively on Anti-Judaism in Antiquity. Moreover, she does Dead Sea Scrolls and looks at the reception history of the Bible.
Work program and research focus 2023
Professor Katell Berthelot will be studying texts from esp. the Roman times, in which antisemitism and assaults on the Jews are mentioned.
She will compare the way Roman authorities dealt with Jews and Egyptians, and analyze the diverging fates of the Jewish and Egyptian cults in the city of Rome. She will also pay particular attention to the issue of proselytes (converts to Judaism) in ancient Roman texts.
Moreover, she will contribute to the study of the Old Greek translation of the book of Esther and its, most likely Roman times, reinterpretation of the Old Greek, in which the anti-Jewish sentiments are differently portrayed.
By conducting the above-described research, Professor Berthelot will contribute to the study of the textual sources from antiquity that deal with anti-Judaism and antisemitism.
