Annette Merz

Annette Brigitte Merz (born December 1, 1965 in Frankfurt am Main ) is a German theologian and has been a professor of culture and literature of early Christianity in the theology department at the University of Utrecht since 2006 .

Education

Merz studied at the University of Heidelberg , where he received his doctorate summa cum laude in 2001 . The doctorate The intertextual and historical place of pastoral letters with Gerd Theißen and Peter Lampe also received the Ruprecht-Karls-Preis of the Foundation of Heidelberg University in 2002 . Together with Teun Tieleman, she leads a research program " Habent sua fata libelli " on text production in the Roman Empire. She took her first theological exam in 1992 in the Westphalian regional church .

Contributions to the historical Jesus

She became known with publications on the historical Jesus , in particular with the book The Historical Jesus , which she wrote together with Gerd Theißen. It has been translated into several languages. It is a popular study book and is often used for exam preparation by theology students.

The book tries to reproduce the efforts, known as the Third Quest (“third question”) since around 1980, to explain Jesus' appearance from a consistently historical perspective in the overall context of his time. Especially in the American environment, in addition to the traditional German historical-critical literature analysis of the Bible, apocryphal and extra-biblical texts as well as extra-biblical findings from archeology , social history , cultural anthropology , oriental studies and Jewish studies were included much more than before . Merz and Theißen self-critically admit that historical-critical research, theological research in the German-speaking area in general, has often neglected the archeology and geography of the life and work of Jesus and has wrongly left it primarily to conservative researchers and above all to American experts. One of the reasons why the research focus has shifted to the USA with the advent of the Third Quest.

criticism

Peter Stuhlmacher and Daniel Graf criticize psychological queries about the self-confidence of Jesus and further speculations in the final part of the work.

Hermann Detering , a representative of Dutch radical criticism, is amazed at how Merz and Theissen dealt with the Easter event, including the statement that there is some evidence that “the tradition of the empty grave has a historical core”.

Despite various assurances not to allow one's own Jesus ideal to flow into the work , as in the classic life of Jesus research , according to Detering, Theißen and Merz came up with an image of Jesus in which this is exactly the case again. In the traditional images of Jesus, the personality structure that was viewed by its authors as the highest ethical ideal was assigned to it. This also applies to the Jesus in Merz and Theißen, whose "grassroots democratic, emancipatory, anti-patriarchal, economic and family-critical non-violent Jesus" reflects the system-critical, alternative West German zeitgeist par excellence . In addition, Merz and Theissen's hypothesis of the purely internal Jewish origin of Christianity is completely untenable.

Positions

Merz sees a negative interaction between philhellenism and anti-Semitism as two sides of the same coin in the theologian Carl Schneider, among others . She implicitly takes up theses by Suzanne L. Marchand on the interplay between German philhellenism and the German Sonderweg (or this hypothesis). Marchand had linked the fundamental role of archaeological research projects and the philhellenism of the German states and the German bourgeoisie with the development towards National Socialism .

Merz translated the Philippians letter for the controversial Bible in just language . She addressed the role of the Sea of Galilee in the postulated " Jesus movement " and described Jesus' business ethics under the heading " Mammon as God's fiercest competitor".

Memberships

She is a member of EABS (European Association of Biblical Studies), SBL (Society of Biblical Literature), ESWTR (European Society of Women in Theological Research), NOSTER (The Netherlands School for Advanced Studies in Theology and Religion) and SNTC (Studiosorum Novi Testamenti Conventus).

Books

The fictional self-interpretation of Paul. Intertextual studies on the intention and reception of pastoral letters . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 978-3-525-53953-8 (= Novum testamentum et orbis antiquus / studies on the environment of the New Testament, NTOA / StUNT. Volume 52, also a dissertation at the University of Heidelberg 2001).
Gerd Theißen, Annette Merz: The historical Jesus . A textbook. 4th edition, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-525-52198-4 .

Web links

Website at the University of Utrecht
"Jesus - Myth and Truth" - History LIVE with Guido Knopp and Annette Merz (theologian), Klaus Wengst (theologian) and Hermann Detering (theologian) on December 21, 2014 on Phoenix [1]
Photography by Annette Merz [2]

Individual evidence

↑ Prof. Dr. AB Merz (1965 -) Catalogus Professorum Academiæ Rheno-Traiectinæ
↑ 3rd edition Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-52198-7
↑ More under Gerd Theißen, Annette Merz: The controversial historical Jesus or: How historical is the historical Jesus? In: Sigurd Martin Daecke, Peter R. Sahm (ed.): Jesus of Nazareth and Christianity. Does the pluralistic society need a new image of Jesus? Neukirchen 2000, ISBN 3-7887-1767-X , pp. 171-193. Danish: The controversial historiske Jesus ; in: Troels Engberg-Pedersen (ed.): Den historiske Jesus og hans betydning ; Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1998, pp. 50-71. Annette Merz (ed.): Jesus as a historical figure. Contributions to Jesus research. For Gerd Theißen's 60th birthday ; FRLANT 202; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2003, ISBN 3-525-53886-3 .
↑ Gerd Theißen, Annette Merz: The historical Jesus. A textbook. Göttingen 2001, p. 172
↑ Peter Stuhlmacher, Daniel Graf: On the way to a Biblical Theology: Perspektiven der Konzeption , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2011
↑ Which is by no means only represented by Merz and Theißen, but has a certain justification independent of belief in a resurrection of Christ, cf. for example James H. Charlesworth: Jesus and Archeology ; Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing, May 15, 2006
^ Hermann Detering: "A kind of metamorphosis of the human", "The Historical Jesus" by Gerd Theißen and Annette Merz ; Review, Berlin 2010
^ Annette Merz: Philhellenism and Antisemitism: Two Sides of One Coin in the Academic Writings of Carl Schneider. In: Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte , Issue 17.2 (2004), pp. 314–330.
^ Suzanne L. Marchand: Down from Olympus: Archeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750-1970 ; 1996
↑ The “Sea of Galilee” and the Jesus Movement ; World and Environment of the Bible 24 (2002), pp. 32–39.
↑ Mammon as God's fiercest competitor - Jesus' vision of the kingdom of God and money. In: Severin J. Lederhilger (Ed.): God or Mammon. Christian Ethics and the Religion of Money ; Linz philosophical-theological contributions 3; Ecumenical Summer Academy 2, 2000, Kremsmünster; Frankfurt: Peter Lang Verlag 2001, ISBN 3-631-37324-4 , pp. 34-90.

personal data
SURNAME	Merz, Annette
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Annette Brigitte Merz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German Protestant theologian
DATE OF BIRTH	December 1, 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH	Frankfurt am Main

[1] Prof. Dr. AB Merz (1965 -) Catalogus Professorum Academiæ Rheno-Traiectinæ

[2] 3rd edition Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-52198-7

[3] More under Gerd Theißen, Annette Merz: The controversial historical Jesus or: How historical is the historical Jesus? In: Sigurd Martin Daecke, Peter R. Sahm (ed.): Jesus of Nazareth and Christianity. Does the pluralistic society need a new image of Jesus? Neukirchen 2000, ISBN 3-7887-1767-X , pp. 171-193. Danish: The controversial historiske Jesus ; in: Troels Engberg-Pedersen (ed.): Den historiske Jesus og hans betydning ; Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1998, pp. 50-71. Annette Merz (ed.): Jesus as a historical figure. Contributions to Jesus research. For Gerd Theißen's 60th birthday ; FRLANT 202; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2003, ISBN 3-525-53886-3 .

[4] Gerd Theißen, Annette Merz: The historical Jesus. A textbook. Göttingen 2001, p. 172

[5] Peter Stuhlmacher, Daniel Graf: On the way to a Biblical Theology: Perspektiven der Konzeption , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2011

[6] Which is by no means only represented by Merz and Theißen, but has a certain justification independent of belief in a resurrection of Christ, cf. for example James H. Charlesworth: Jesus and Archeology ; Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing, May 15, 2006

[7] Hermann Detering: "A kind of metamorphosis of the human", "The Historical Jesus" by Gerd Theißen and Annette Merz ; Review, Berlin 2010

[8] Annette Merz: Philhellenism and Antisemitism: Two Sides of One Coin in the Academic Writings of Carl Schneider. In: Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte , Issue 17.2 (2004), pp. 314–330.

[9] Suzanne L. Marchand: Down from Olympus: Archeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750-1970 ; 1996

[10] The “Sea of Galilee” and the Jesus Movement ; World and Environment of the Bible 24 (2002), pp. 32–39.

[11] Mammon as God's fiercest competitor - Jesus' vision of the kingdom of God and money. In: Severin J. Lederhilger (Ed.): God or Mammon. Christian Ethics and the Religion of Money ; Linz philosophical-theological contributions 3; Ecumenical Summer Academy 2, 2000, Kremsmünster; Frankfurt: Peter Lang Verlag 2001, ISBN 3-631-37324-4 , pp. 34-90.