Biblical Studies Group

Researcher in charge: Elvira María Martín Contreras

This group covers one of the main debates in our contemporary world, that of the transmission and interpretation of biblical text. From a philology perspective, we mainly focus on open problems concerning the original text and textual pluralism, the historic evolution of the texts and the new hermeneutic theories.

Its general goals are: to contribute to the current debate on the methodology of the scientific editions of biblical texts; to define the different phases of the transmission of the Greek biblical text; to clarify and value the role played by the Rabbis and their literary production in the transmission of the Hebrew biblical text from the setting of its consonantal text (1st century) until the appearance of the Masorah; to recover the information transmitted by the Masoretes to clarify the textual problems of the Hebrew Bible; and study of the survival of the biblical legacy in European culture.

They are involved in the edition and study of the Masorot of M1 codex (Hebrew text base of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible); comparative studies of the Masorot of Tiberian and Spanish Hebrew manuscripts with the aim of clarifying the principles of preparation, their origins, sources and phases of development; identification and study of the textual commentaries formulated in Masoretic terminology that is found in midrashic literature, whether legal or narrative, with the aim of reconstructing the history of the textual transmission of the Hebrew Bible in a period about which not much is known; and to bring to an end the first Spanish translation of the Greek Bible, with special attention to how the translators understood the Hebrew text and interpreted it in the first centuries of Christianity.".