Finally, I have been thankful tofind a number of colleagues in Biblical
Studies over the years who shared my interests in the cognitive approach, and
whose company and intellectual stimulus has been of great importance to me.
With Risto Uro I have spent countless hours and exchanged thousands of
emails discussing our shared research interests as well as planning and man-
aging a number of joint projects. I thank him for many inspiring conversa-
tions. The preparation of the manuscript of this book benefitted from Risto’s
comments on several chapters. Gerd Theissen has been a wonderful conver-
sation partner and kindly agreed to co-teach seminars with me at the Univer-
sity of Heidelberg, as well as kept urging me to work on this book. When
starting to write about cognitive science and biblical materials, I was lucky to
have Tamás Biró as a friend and colleague, with whom I could talk about
language, computer models, rituals, history, system theory, Hebrew Studies,
and many other topics that are treated on the following pages. Over the years
I had the pleasure to meet other scholars who were interested in bringing
cognitive approaches to Biblical Studies, among whom I would like to thank
especially Anne Katrina de Hemmer Gudme, Jutta Jokiranta, Thomas Kazen,
Anders Klostergaard Petersen, Hugo Lundhaug, Petri Luomanen, Ronit
Nikolsky, Rikard Roitto, and Colleen Shantz.
The beginnings of this project reach back to a seminar on the“Cognitive
and Evolutionary Foundations of Religion”that I taught at the University of
Groningen in 2004, followed by a series of courses at the University of Helsinki
and the University of Heidelberg on different cognitive subjects in the context
of religion, early Christianity, and the New Testament. I thank my students for
their interest in what might have seemed at times like exotic seminar topics.
I learned a lot from those courses. I owe thanks to my colleagues at the
Theological Faculties of Heidelberg and Helsinki for providing me with
inspiring academic environments. The Heisenberg Fellowship of the German
Research Foundation and the visiting fellowship of the Käte Hamburger Kol-
leg“Dynamics in the History of Religions”at the University of Bochum,
directed by Volkhard Krech, provided me with valuable research time tofinish
the book project. At Oxford University Press, I am thankful to Tom Perridge,
Karen Raith, Nishantini Amir, and my copy-editor, Elizabeth Stone.
My wife, Gyöngyi, and my daughter, Éva, watched me working on this book
for too long and I am grateful for their love, patience, and support.
István Czachesz
Heidelberg
April 2016
vi Preface