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"Centralization and Environmental Amnesia in Deuteronomy"

Tuesday, April 15, 2014
12:00 AM
202 South Thayer Room 1022

The Book of Deuteronomy is written from the perspective of a literate elite who lived within the "culture" of Jerusalem yet distant from the typical agrarian household's place in "nature." Combining insights from environmental hermeneutics, environmental history, zooarchaeology, and his own organic farm, Person will reflect on the environmental amnesia of the urban elite and how it influenced their reinterpretation of agricultural festivals (Deut 16:1-17) and "unclean" versus "clean" animals (Deut 14:3-20).

His publications include The Deuteronomic History and the Book of Chronicles: Scribal Works in an Oral World (SBL 2010) and Deuteronomy and Environmental Amnesia (Sheffield Phoenix Press, forthcoming). He and his wife, Elizabeth, live on a 20-acre organic farm near Bluffton, Ohio, which produces meat, eggs, and vegetables for a cooperative of 20 families that work the land together.

Speaker:
Raymond F. Person, Jr. Professor of Religion at Ohio Northern University