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Books by Heleen Murre-van den Berg

Heleen Murre-van den Berg (Leiden) The Unexpected Popularity of the Study of Middle Eastern Chris... more Heleen Murre-van den Berg (Leiden) The Unexpected Popularity of the Study of Middle Eastern Christianity While the percentage of Christians in the Middle East continues to diminish, the interest in their fate has been on the rise. One important reason for this is the growing interest m Islam and the Middle East since the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing political turmoil in the region, especially after the western invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2003. The cascade of events that followed the invasions unsettled many of the Middle Eastern societies, to the detriment of most of its citizens. Minorities of all kinds (religious, ethnic and social) were affected even more seriously than other citizens by the uncertainties resulting from civU war and uprisings in Iraq, Egypt and Syria. The plight of Christians in these countries caught the attention of many in the west, more often than not accompanied by the surprise that indeed these countries comprised sizeable Christian communities. ' In the wake of harrowing stories of expulsion and displacement, abductions and murder, western journalists and other popular writers gradually began to pay more consistent attention to Christians in the whole of the Middle East even if news about their fate is easily sidelined by more pressing issues.2 In this volume in honor of our colleague Martin Tamcke, it seems fitting to discuss in somewhat more detail the rising interest in the Christian communities of this region, as a tribute to his lifelong interest in and extensive contributions to this field. Wliile it would be farfetched to attribute this growing popular interest to the developments in the academic world, including the work of Tamcke, it is clear that by the time a wider readership became interested in these themes, an impressive array of scholarship on Christians in the Middle East was available. What I propose to do in this brief contribution is to situate the popular interest in the 1 On Christians and the uprisings in Egypt and Syria, see Najib George Awad, And Freedom Became a Public-Square: Political, Sociological and Religious Overviews on the Arab Christians and the Arabic Spring (Studien zur Orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 46; Miinster: LIT, 2012). 2 At the time of completion of this contribution (July 2014), the advance of the radical Islamist caliphate' of ISIS in northern Iraq, with its destructive actions against Christians and other non-Sunni minorities, against shrines of all kinds, against minorities more generally, was receiving little attention amidst the deadly war against Gaza and the downing of the Maleisian/Dutch airplane MHi-j in Eastern Ukraine.

What do written texts mean to a community that is mostly illiterate? What is the role of scribes ... more What do written texts mean to a community that is mostly illiterate? What is the role of scribes in such a society? What languages did they use in writing, and why? What texts did they favor? What happens to religion and learning in a Middle Eastern church that is confronted by other, Western, ways of belief?
This study takes the scribal production of texts, from the Holy Scriptures to the first traces of popular writing, as its main source to analyze the changes that took place between 1500 and 1850 in the Church of the East, the precursor of today’s Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East. How this church dealt with these monumental changes, how that affected everything from the production of texts to the fabric of society as a whole, and how that contributes to our understanding of this church’s modern day off-shoots, is the topic of this study.

New Faith in Ancient Lands. Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Redefining Christian Identity. Cultural Interaction in the Middle East since the Rise of Islam

Papers by Heleen Murre-van den Berg

Extensive introduction of and analysis of a wonderful array of papers in the volume that I edited... more Extensive introduction of and analysis of a wonderful array of papers in the volume that I edited together with Sasha Goldstein-Sabbah (2016), Modernity, Minority, and the Public Sphere: Jews and Christians in the Middle East (Leiden Studies in Islam and Society 4, Leiden: Brill; Open Access; DOI: 10.1163/9789004323285).

The Patriarchs of the Church of the East from the Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries

Heleen Murre-van den Berg (Leiden) The Unexpected Popularity of the Study of Middle Eastern Chris... more Heleen Murre-van den Berg (Leiden) The Unexpected Popularity of the Study of Middle Eastern Christianity While the percentage of Christians in the Middle East continues to diminish, the interest in their fate has been on the rise. One important reason for this is the growing interest m Islam and the Middle East since the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing political turmoil in the region, especially after the western invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2003. The cascade of events that followed the invasions unsettled many of the Middle Eastern societies, to the detriment of most of its citizens. Minorities of all kinds (religious, ethnic and social) were affected even more seriously than other citizens by the uncertainties resulting from civU war and uprisings in Iraq, Egypt and Syria. The plight of Christians in these countries caught the attention of many in the west, more often than not accompanied by the surprise that indeed these countries comprised sizeable Christian communities. ' In the wake of harrowing stories of expulsion and displacement, abductions and murder, western journalists and other popular writers gradually began to pay more consistent attention to Christians in the whole of the Middle East even if news about their fate is easily sidelined by more pressing issues.2 In this volume in honor of our colleague Martin Tamcke, it seems fitting to discuss in somewhat more detail the rising interest in the Christian communities of this region, as a tribute to his lifelong interest in and extensive contributions to this field. Wliile it would be farfetched to attribute this growing popular interest to the developments in the academic world, including the work of Tamcke, it is clear that by the time a wider readership became interested in these themes, an impressive array of scholarship on Christians in the Middle East was available. What I propose to do in this brief contribution is to situate the popular interest in the 1 On Christians and the uprisings in Egypt and Syria, see Najib George Awad, And Freedom Became a Public-Square: Political, Sociological and Religious Overviews on the Arab Christians and the Arabic Spring (Studien zur Orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 46; Miinster: LIT, 2012). 2 At the time of completion of this contribution (July 2014), the advance of the radical Islamist caliphate' of ISIS in northern Iraq, with its destructive actions against Christians and other non-Sunni minorities, against shrines of all kinds, against minorities more generally, was receiving little attention amidst the deadly war against Gaza and the downing of the Maleisian/Dutch airplane MHi-j in Eastern Ukraine.

What do written texts mean to a community that is mostly illiterate? What is the role of scribes ... more What do written texts mean to a community that is mostly illiterate? What is the role of scribes in such a society? What languages did they use in writing, and why? What texts did they favor? What happens to religion and learning in a Middle Eastern church that is confronted by other, Western, ways of belief?
This study takes the scribal production of texts, from the Holy Scriptures to the first traces of popular writing, as its main source to analyze the changes that took place between 1500 and 1850 in the Church of the East, the precursor of today’s Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East. How this church dealt with these monumental changes, how that affected everything from the production of texts to the fabric of society as a whole, and how that contributes to our understanding of this church’s modern day off-shoots, is the topic of this study.

New Faith in Ancient Lands. Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Redefining Christian Identity. Cultural Interaction in the Middle East since the Rise of Islam

Extensive introduction of and analysis of a wonderful array of papers in the volume that I edited... more Extensive introduction of and analysis of a wonderful array of papers in the volume that I edited together with Sasha Goldstein-Sabbah (2016), Modernity, Minority, and the Public Sphere: Jews and Christians in the Middle East (Leiden Studies in Islam and Society 4, Leiden: Brill; Open Access; DOI: 10.1163/9789004323285).

The Patriarchs of the Church of the East from the Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries

Church History and Religious Culture, Jan 1, 2007

Church History and Religious Culture, Jan 1, 2010