dr. Silvia Castelli

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Religion and Theology, Religious Sources

Personal information

I am a Senior Assistant Professor (Universitair Docent 1) of New Testament, specialized in New Testament studies and Early Judaism, with a focus on the history of New Testament textual criticism and Jewish literature in Greek. I am a member of The Society for New Testament Studies (SNTS), the Dutch Society of New Testament Studies (SNTC), the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), and the European (EAJS), Dutch (NGJS), and Italian (AISG) Associations for Jewish Studies.

At the Faculty of Religion and Theology, I am a member of the research teams New Testament and Christian Origins and Contextual Biblical Interpretation, and a member of the PhD Proposal Advisory Committee (PPAC).

Education

I studied Classical Studies at the University of Pavia, Italy, majoring in both Greek and Latin, and wrote a MA thesis on Josephus’ interpretation of Genesis (MA 1997). I received my fist PhD in Jewish Studies from the University of Turin (2001), under the supervision of the semitist Bruno Chiesa and the historian of Roman history Lucio Troiani, with a dissertation on Josephus’ interpretation of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. I have been a Fellow of the Institut für Europäische Geschichte (now Leibnitz Institute) in Mainz (1998-1999) and a post-doc Lady Davis Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2001-2002). During my first PhD I also spent a three-months research stay at Yale University (1999).

In 2010 I moved to the Netherlands to join the NWO project New Testament Conjectural Emendation: A Comprehensive Enquiry (VU Amsterdam 2010-2016). I collaborated to the Amsterdam Dababase of New Testament Conjectural Emendation, a crucial work in the field of NT textual criticism, and after a necessary career break, in 2019 defended my second PhD dissertation on the history of the criteria for evaluating variant readings, under the supervision of Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte and Jan Krans. It was published by Brill in 2020 (see here).

Research

In the area of New Testament studies, I work on the history of New Testament textual criticism, with a focus on the history of methodology (e.g., conjectural emendation, criteria for evaluating readings, text types).

In the field of Early Judaism, I have written extensively on Josephus’ text, biblical interpretation, narrative, and reception, but also on Philo of Alexandria, the Septuagint, and the Greco-Roman context of first-century Judaism. For this research line, I am part of the network of the project Responses to Imperialism in Roman Historical Writings (University of Southern Denmark and University of Copenhagen, 2023–2027), and I am currently working on the conceptualization of patience/patientia in the ancient world.

Trained as a Classicist and a firm believer in interdisciplinary research and team science, I have worked for the project Anchoring Innovation of the Dutch Netherlands Research School in Classical Studies with a focus on the role agency in innovation (see here).

Moreover, I am the initiator and (co)-chair (with Peter-Ben Smit) of the SBL Annual Meeting new program unit Biblical Studies and Spiritual Care: Intersections of Pastoral Practice and Biblical Hermeneutics (2024–2026). This unit aims at integrating in biblical scholarship the hermeneutical perspectives offered by the multifarious contexts of spiritual care and highlights the relevance of biblical literature for the professionalization of chaplains. Several initiatives are connected to this research group and please feel free to contact me if you are interested in this research line.

For an updated overview of my publications, see my Research output.

Teaching

My teaching history includes courses at all academic levels. At the University of Trento, Italy (2004-2009) I have been teaching MA courses of Greek and Roman History: Ancient Greek historiography of the Near-East: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Phoenicia, Palestine; Ancient Judaism from a Greek perspective; Diaspora: Jewish Interaction in the Greco-Roman World; Ancient Greek Religion: An Introduction; Ancient Greek divination. Early Christianity in the Roman empire; Roman Palestine: A Geographic and Archaeological Approach; Anti-Semitism in ancient Rome? Problem and Sources; Ancient Roman Religion: An Introduction; The Jewish Community of Ancient Rome.

At Leiden University (2021-22 and 2023-24), I have been teaching the (Res)MA course Shem in the Tents of Japhet: Exploring Cultural Negotiation in Greco-Roman Jewish-Greek Literature.

In 2022 I have been a Visiting Professor at the University of Pavia, where I taught the MA course History of Judaism in the Roman Age.

At VU, I am the coordinator of the BA Greek courses (Greek I-II-III), I teach myself Greek II and III, and I am responsible for the Reading group NT Greek, specifically aimed to PhD students, but open to other students as well.

Supervision

I am currently (co-)supervising three PhD students: Marie-José Fortin, working on composite citations in the NT, Ramy Shenouda, working on the Samaritans in the NT, and Henk Veldhuijzen, working on Hebrews 13.

I enjoy the supervision very much and I welcome PhD students in the area of Early Judaism, Greco-Roman and Jewish backgrounds of the NT, Research Method of the NT, Textual History of the Greek New Testament, and Biblical Studies and Spiritual Care.

Ancillary activities

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Ancillary activities are updated daily