More Than Just Father, Mother, and Child—The New Testament and Its Diverse Forms of Relationships and Ways of Life

When people read ancient texts, they often unconsciously project their own modern ideas onto the past. For example, when the Bible says that believers in Christ are a “family,” many imagine a traditional “nuclear family” with a father, mother, and children—yet such a concept of “family,” and even the term itself, did not yet exist at that time. Similarly, when reading biblical texts, certain groups often remain invisible—most notably slaves, but also women and children. And what relevance do these ancient texts even have to how people live today?
These and other questions will be explored in this interactive lecture using numerous examples and images. It becomes clear that the ways in which people lived (with one another) were already diverse in antiquity, and that we should keep this diversity in mind today when reading biblical texts.