Professor of Religious Studies and Chair
Department of Classics and Religious Studies
University of Ottawa
70 Laurier Avenue East, Room 118
Ottawa ON, K1N 6N5
Canada
Telephone: 613-562-5800 ext. 1169
Email: piovanel@uOttawa.ca
Pierluigi Piovanelli has always been interested in the phenomenon of the elaboration of traditions memorializing the origins of Judaism and Christianity. This is the process that gave birth to the different kinds of texts destined to become either “canonical” or “apocryphal.” Contrary to common opinion, canonicity and apocryphicity are two highly ideological categories and their boundaries often fluctuate. The great biblical cycles that Professor Piovanelli has explored include the narratives about the patriarch Enoch, the king and priest Melchizedek, the prophet Jeremiah, and the apostle Paul. Over time, Professor Piovanelli’s research on apocryphal hermeneutics have helped him to rediscover and reappraise a large group of late antique texts. Among them, the most interesting is, without any doubt, the Book of the Cock, an apocryphal passion gospel full of astonishing Jewish Christian legends, probably written in the middle of the fifth century. Such processes of apocryphal reinvention have, in fact, never stopped and are still at work in contemporary novels, paintings, and films.
Publications (in PDF)
