Faculty of Theology > Staff > Profile
Anne Katrine de Hemmer Gudme
PH.D. student
Department of Biblical Exegesis
Købmagergade 44-46, 2.
1150 København K
Location:
337
Phone: +45 353-23928
Phone (Reception desk): +45 353-23646
E-mail: akg@ibt.ku.dk
Primary research areas
Current research
My project title is ‘Votive objects from Palestine'. It is my aim to assess votive objects from Palestine from the Iron Age, Persian and Hellenistic periods in order to receive an impression of votive practice in Palestine during these periods. The background for this work was set during my work on my Prize Thesis in which I exposed ‘the law of the Nazirite' in Numbers 6:1-21 to a ritualistic reading. The Nazirite vow led me on to conditional vows in the Hebrew Bible and in the Ancient Near East and thus I arrived at an interest for votive practice in general. I hope to make a thematic presentation of votive practice in Palestine in the Iron Age, Persian and Hellenistic periods, and to compare this practice with what is mentioned of votive practice in the Hebrew Bible. Further more I wish to compare votive practice in Palestine with votive practice in Phoenicia and Greece and perhaps to draw lines to votive practice in Palestine in the Roman Imperial period. One of my working hypothesises, to be confirmed or disproved, is whether votive practice in Palestine and in the Hebrew Bible was increasingly influenced by the Hellenistic culture. The project implies the following methodological considerations ; firstly a question of terminology: the term ‘votive' is used in its broad sense about more or less every kind of gift given to a deity or a sanctuary. Usually sacrifices are not considered votive objects. On the basis of my empirical material from Palestine I propose a more nuanced terminology, subdividing votive practice into ‘votive/vow-based', ‘dedicatory' and ‘interceding'. This should help to place votive practice more accurately in relation to the categories of sacrifice and prayer. Secondly, comparing archaeological material with references to ritual behaviour in the Hebrew Bible, demands a critical methodological evaluation of whether a historical religious and ritual system is presented in the Hebrew Bible and how scholars should work with such a system.