Merry Christmas everyone! It’s been a bit hectic around here lately and this made me take a blogging break.

However, here is an interesting message I just got from Pierluigi Piovanelli concerning the next colloquium organized by the Association pour l’étude de la littérature apocryphe chrétienne:

This fourth international Colloquium on apocryphal literature is devoted to Adam and Eve in apocryphal traditions. The new edition of the Vita latina Adae et Evae just published in the Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum led the AELAC to organise this meeting. It should be an opportunity to honour the memory of Jean-Pierre Pettorelli, who devoted much time and energy in the last years of his life to the completion of this outstanding edition.

In the same spirit as the 2006 Colloquium on the Pseudo-Clementine Romance, this Colloquium will focus on the different forms of the Life of Adam and Eve, and at the same time be open as regards topics and methodology. On the one hand it welcomes original research on Adamic texts and traditions from Antiquity to modern times. On the other hand it aims at promoting a dialogue between scholars using different scientific
approaches.

The members of the Organising Committee aim to encourage the participation of representatives of various disciplines in order to cast new light on the Life of Adam and Eve, in a fruitful dialogue with researchers particularly involved in the study of apocryphal
literature. They hope this meeting will highlight the fact that research on Jewish apocrypha and research on Christian apocrypha are closely interrelated.

To further an interdisciplinary approach built on a common text, the work of the Conference will be divided into two main fields:
1. Texts
1.1. At the origin of the project, the Life of Adam and Eve will be questioned from various perspectives: what are the different recensions and how do they relate? Is the work originally Jewish or Christian? How was it transmitted, interpreted and reused?
1.2. The Life of Adam and Eve belongs to a larger corpus of texts and traditions related to the protoplasts, in different languages and cultural areas. Where, when and how did these other texts and traditions originate, survive and change? What have been
their functions?
2. Themes
The Life of Adam and Eve conveys a wide range of themes, such as paradise, Satan, reflections on the origin of evil, Adam’s ultimate fate, mysteries revealed to Adam, human birth, food, relationship of man with animals, physical suffering, death,
etc.

The Colloquium is hoped to foster the understanding of the mental, cultural and religious representations found in the Adamic texts and traditions by exploiting a diversified range of knowledge (anthropology, philosophy, history of mentalities, history of social practices).