Michael Langlois

Samson, David, Daniel or Gilgamesh are some of the most famous heroes in biblical and mesopotamian literature. These characters are the object of a new book entitled “The Young Hero,” that I edited together with J.-M. Durand and Th. Römer.

To give you a taste, here is the table of contents: Read the rest of this entry »

I have been invited to speak at an international conference on the Targums (Aramaic versions of the Hebrew Bible) in the light of ancient Jewish traditions from the Second Temple period (i.e. until the beginning of the common era).

My paper will address the question of a possible Second Temple origin for the critique of power in the targumim. If you’re interested, the conference will take place in Strasbourg on June 27-28, 2011.

Here is the meeting program: Read the rest of this entry »

Who are the fallen angels? Where do they come from? What are their names? This last question caught my attention, and I invite you to discover my conclusions in the following paper:

Langlois, Michael. “Shemihazah et compagnie(s). Onomastique des anges déchus dans les manuscrits araméens du Livre d’Hénoch” in Aramaica Qumranica. Proceedings of the Conference on the Aramaic Texts from Qumran in Aix-en-Provence, 30 June – 2 July 2008, edited by Katell Berthelot and Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, Leiden – Boston, Brill, 2010, 145-180.

After a first conference on the character of Enoch at the Robertsau Socio-Cultural Center, in Strasbourg, I will pursue on Sunday, February 6, 2011 at 3:15 PM on the following theme:

The Book of Enoch: Origin and Content

Be careful, the number of seats is limited! For more information (address, availability and price), please read the flyer.

The course of Old Testament Textual Criticism that I teach at the School of Ancient Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the Catholic University of Paris starts today! This discipline consists in the comparison and evaluation of biblical manuscripts in Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, Latin, Syriac, and so on. In what way do they differ? Can we retrieve the original biblical text? Answer: today at 1 PM!