Classics

The anniversary volume »SAPERE Syntheses« takes stock of twenty-five years of editorial and commentary work. Distinguished representatives of various disciplines engage in a fascinating dialogue of research, grounded in ancient voices, and discuss the topics of »truth,« »life,« »the human being,« and »the world.«

Although scriptural discourses in late antiquity are eminently characterized by forms of wisdom thinking, wisdom is not yet an established category in Qur'anic and Islamic studies. The contributors to this volume explore traces of wisdom thinking, teaching, and interpretation in an interreligious perspective from the Hebrew Bible to the gospels and Hellenistic and late antique literature, and ask for its continuing presence in the context of Islam.

Literature or textbook? In antiquity, no clear distinction was made in this respect, as Christian Neumann demonstrates regarding the complex interplay of literary design and didactic function in Plutarch's Quaestiones Graecae and Romanae and Gellius' Noctes Atticae.

What role did standing stones play in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Ancient Near East during the Bronze and Iron Ages? Mathias Litzenburger analyzes archaeological evidence, inscriptions, and biblical texts, revealing the stones' polyvalent functions as markers, images, and ritual objects.