Michael Langlois

Judaism, followed by Christianity and Islam, is often associated with the birth of monotheism. But is it really the case? Didn’t monotheism appear earlier? On the other hand, is the Bible really monotheistic? What do the earliest manuscripts reveal?

If you want to know more, come

Friday, March 16, 2010 at 8:30 PM

For a conference on

The Birth of Monotheism

This conference is organized by the Lions Club Montigny les 3 Villages, and will take place at Ferme du Manet, 61 avenue du Manet, 78180 Montigny-le-Bretonneux. For more information and booking, please visit the Lions Club website.

This is the title of the chapter I published in the new volume dedicated to the Young Hero.
If you find this title intriguing, there’s one thing to do: read the chapter! Here it is in PDF format. Enjoy!

Michael Langlois, « Loin des yeux, non du cœur : l’héroïsme selon Daniel » in Le jeune héros. Recherches sur la formation et la diffusion d’un thème littéraire au Proche-Orient ancien, éd. par Jean-Marie Durand, Thomas Römer et Michael Langlois (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 250), Fribourg, Academic Press / Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011, p. 242-258.

At the editor’s request, I wrote in Le Muséon a critical review of Jean-Claude Haelewyck’s Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages (Safran, 2006).

The unusual length of this recension (16 pages!) is due to the numerous problems encountered at the reading of this volume. J.-C. Haelewyck is aware of these problems and answered me with these nice words: “I wish all authors to receive such critique. You go into details while always remaining nice and constructive.”

Here is the article in PDF format:
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The Young Hero. Research on the formation and diffusion of a literary theme in the Ancient Near East.

April 6–7, 2009

This interdisciplinary conference, organized by the Chairs of Assyriology and Biblical Milieux at the College of France, explores heroic and initiatic journeys related to royalty, exile, failure, and success. It will also look at the ambivalent status of the hero, who navigates between the world of gods and the world of men. The conference will establish a dialog between themes and figures of Mesopotamia, Syria (Mari, Ugarit), the biblical world, and Greece.

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I will be attending the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) 2008 annual meeting, which is taking place in Boston on November 21 - 25. The program is available here.