Michael Langlois

For the first time in its history, the National Library of France will host an exhibition on the Dead Sea Scrolls! This unprecedented event will take place on April 13 – July 11, 2010, and has been entitled Qumran: Uncovering the Dead Sea Scrolls. Hang on!

The National Library asked me to serve as their Scientific Advisor for this exhibition, which I accepted with great pleasure. Moreover, I will share with Laurent Héricher (oriental manuscripts curator) the Direction of Publication related to this exhibition. More on that later…

Please visit the National Library’s website for more information (such as opening hours, price, access…).

The latest edition of the Introduction to the Old Testament features a new section on the Eastern Churches’ Old Testament, with a general introduction followed by individual presentations of the main books included in the oriental canons.

I was asked to write this section, in which I proposed to include the following books: 3–4 Maccabees, 3–4 Esdras, Jubilees, Enoch, and the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs.

Here is a list of my contributions in PDF format:

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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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Olivier Artus, Director of the School of Ancient Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the Catholic University of Paris, has invited me again to teach Old Testament Textual Criticism.

This course, which I already taught last year, aims at comparing ancient witnesses of the Hebrew Bible — mainly Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, Syriac and Latin. A true journey back to the sources of the biblical text! Join us next Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 13:00 for our first session.

Dariusz Długosz published a review of my book, Le premier manuscrit du Livre d’Hénoch, in The Qumran Chronicle. He concludes that:

Thanks to Michael Langlois’ research, a new direction for the study of Qumran manuscripts has been traced, both for the fragments’ material analysis and their interpretation.

Here is the whole review in PDF format:

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