BAJS Bulletin 2013: Contents in Memoriam Geza Vermes
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
BAJS Bulletin 2013: Contents In memoriam Geza Vermes In memoriam Geza Vermes 1 Growth of Jewish Studies at Edinburgh 5 News 6 BAJS Conference 2013 9 BAJS Committee 13 BAJS Survey 2012/3: Some Remarks 14 Ongoing doctoral research 16 Members’ recent publications 21 Book Reviews 27 CFP: Jewish Journal of Sociology 32 Six Million and One 33 The British Association for Jewish Studies Geza Vermes – His role in the development (BAJS) was founded in 1975 as a learned of Jewish studies and the BAJS society and professional organization on a non- By Philip Alexander profit-making basis. Its aims are to nurture, cultivate and advance the teaching and [The following obituary is based on one by the same research in Jewish culture and history in all its author which appeared in The Guardian on 14th May aspects within Higher Education in the British 2013. Parts of the original appear here with Isles. permission of The Guardian]. Contact: Geza Vermes, one of the founders of the British BAJS Secretary Association for Jewish Studies and its first Helen Spurling President died at Oxford on 8th May 2013 aged History, Faculty of Humanities 88. Geza was born in Makó, Hungary on 22nd University of Southampton June 1924 to deeply assimilated Jewish Southampton parents. His mother, Terézia, was a school- S017 1BF teacher by training, and his father Ernő, a journalist and poet, who associated with some of the leading Hungarian intellectuals of his Bulletin editor: day. Mark Gilfillan ([email protected]) When the family moved to Gyula, Geza was enrolled in a Catholic primary school, and the family converted to Catholicism – “to give me a better chance”, as he himself put it in his autobiography. That may have been his father’s intention, but his mother took the conversion seriously, and became a devout Catholic. The son also seems to have taken it seriously – seriously enough to consider becoming a BAJS Bulletin 2013 · 1 priest, when he graduated at 18 from the a brilliant hypothesis which gained many Catholic gymnasium. The year was 1942 and adherents and became close to academic life was becoming increasingly difficult for orthodoxy. Geza himself never saw grounds for Hungarian Jews. The Vermeses’ baptismal modifying it in its essentials down to his dying certificates proved useless to protect them. The day. young Geza was desperate to further his education, but saw little chance, as a Jew, of Moved by his superiors after completing his gaining a place at university. Entering the doctorate to the Order’s Paris house, he priesthood offered a way forward. engaged with Paul Démann in a campaign, fought through the pages of the Order’s journal, Turned down by the Jesuits, he was accepted the Cahiers Sioniens, to challenge the anti- for training as a priest by the diocese of Judaism then rampant in the Catholic Church. Nagyvárad, and so began life as a seminarian. He broadened his education, meeting leading The move was providential and saved his life, scholars such as André Dupont-Sommer and when, in March 1944, German forces occupied attending classes of Georges Vajda (a fellow Hungary, setting up a puppet government, Hungarian). Renée Bloch (another talented which, under Eichmann’s murderous direction, young Jewish convert) introduced him to rapidly began to implement the Nazi “final Jewish Bible commentary (Midrash) – a field in solution” against the Jews. Geza’s parents which he was later to excel. perished – exactly when, where, and how he never discovered. With the aid of the Church he His “French period”, as he jokingly called it, managed to remain hidden, and was in came to a dramatic end. On a visit to England, Budapest when the city fell to the Red Army in he was introduced by a mutual friend to 1944. Pamela, and, in late 1955, they fell in love. The situation was complicated and stressful. Pam He resumed his studies for the priesthood, but was married with two young daughters. Geza as ordination approached, the thought of a was a Catholic priest. It was resolved in the end parish ministry appealed to him less and less. (reasonably amicably) by Pam separating from He was desperate to continue studying. An her husband, joining and subsequently attempt to join the Dominicans was rebuffed, marrying Geza, who left the Fathers of Sion and but he was admitted to the Order of the Fathers the priesthood. of Notre-Dame de Sion, and after a hair-raising journey across war-ravaged Europe, he Desperate for a job that would allow him to entered their house in Louvain in 1948. The remain in England, he gladly accepted in 1957 nearby Catholic University of Louvain at last a temporary lectureship in divinity in King’s gave him the chance to get the education his College, then a constituent college of the talents deserved. He became licencié both in University of Durham, but now the University Theology and Philosophy, and completed the of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. There he cemented first doctorate on the recently discovered Dead his international reputation with Scripture and Sea Scrolls. This was a risky topic to choose at Tradition (1961), a seminal study of early the time. It had only been in 1947 that an Arab Jewish Bible commentary, which launched the shepherd had chanced upon the first scrolls. idea of “rewritten Bible”, and with the Dead Sea These early finds were published speedily, but Scrolls in English (1962), an elegant translation reports kept circulating that more caves of the Scrolls. The latter, steadily augmented as containing more manuscripts were being new Scrolls were published, has not been out found. No scholarly consensus had yet emerged of print since. as to when the Scrolls were written, or by whom. Wildly fluctuating dates were being On the strength of these works he was offered assigned to them, some even claiming that they the position of Reader in Jewish Studies at had been copied in the middle ages. From Oxford in 1965 (promoted to full Professor in careful analysis of the published material Geza 1989). Some in the Jewish community decried argued that the Jewish sect behind the Scrolls the appointment, but buoyed by the support of originated at the time of the Maccabean crisis Oxford luminaries such as David Daube, he dug in the middle of the second century BCE. It was BAJS Bulletin 2013 · 2 himself into Oxford life, and abundantly repaid Geza offered outstanding academic leadership. the electors’ faith in choosing him for the post. He helped build up Jewish studies as an academic discipline, acting as first president On the strength of these works he was offered both of the British Association for Jewish the position of Reader in Jewish studies at Studies (1975), and of the European Oxford in 1965 (promoted to full professor in Association for Jewish Studies (1982). When 1989). Some in the Jewish community decried BAJS was founded Jewish Studies in this the appointment, but buoyed by the support of country was a tiny, minority subject, with only Oxford luminaries such as David Daube, he dug a handful of academic positions strictly- himself into Oxford life, and abundantly repaid speaking in the field. Researchers, teachers and the electors’ faith in choosing him for the post. students were scattered and isolated. BAJS It was there I first met him in 1967 when I undoubtedly helped bring them together and joined a class he was teaching on the early create the momentum which led to a period of Jewish law-code the Mishnah. Subsequently I remarkable expansion and achievement. The did a doctorate with him on the Aramaic vitality of the subject can be measured by the Targumim – the first of many doctorates new positions and centres established over the successfully completed under his supervision. past thirty years, and by the amount of external research funding attracted by Jewish Studies Happily settled with Pam on Boar’s Hill in an projects – funding out of all proportion to the idyllic house, backing on to Bagley Wood, his size of the discipline. Geza can be seen as in achievements at Oxford were immense. He many ways the presiding genius of this took on the editorship of the Journal of Jewish development. He attracted talented students to Studies, and turned it into one of the foremost work with him, many of whom became journals in its field. He collaborated with scholars of distinction in their own right and Fergus Millar and Martin Goodman, a former helped carry on his work. Geza’s achievements student, who subsequently succeeded him in were well recognized in his lifetime, and the Chair of Jewish Studies, on a major revision included a fellowship of the British Academy, of Emil Schürer’s multi-volume classic The honorary doctorates from Edinburgh, Durham, History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Sheffield and the Central European University, Christ. In his truly epoch-making Jesus the Jew Budapest, and a vote of congratulation by the (one of the earliest of his many studies of Jesus US House of Representatives “for inspiring and and the origins of Christianity) he helped educating the world”. launch the new quest for the historical Jesus. He continued his work on the Scrolls, but he When, after thirty-five years of marriage Pam felt he was treading water, because the died in 1993, Geza was devastated. But in 1995 publication of the numerous unpublished texts he married Margaret, a younger friend, whom had virtually ground to a halt. The small he and Pam had known for years. With editorial team to whom they had been assigned Margaret came her small son Ian from her were not themselves doing their job, but, former marriage.