Master's in Religion and Pluralism, Ancient & Modern

The University of Groningen is a public research university located in the city of Groningen, Netherlands. Founded in 1614, it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. The university has 11 faculties, including one in the Frisian capital of Leeuwarden, and has more than 37,000 students from over 120 nationalities. It also boasts over 140,000 alumni and a budget of 1,000 million EUR.

What were the limits of tolerance and acceptance? Which roles did inclusion and exclusion play in the ancient world? How were notions of self and other shaped, and what were their mutual influences? This MA track studies the existence and coexistence of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Exploring the impact of religious diversity on social identity formation in the Graeco-Roman and late antique periods until the rise of Islam, it analyses the role of tolerance and acceptance, of rejection and exclusion in their mutual relationships during the last two millennia. You will focus on a historical and philological analysis of the textual sources documenting the contacts among these religious traditions, approaching them from different angles and with diverse methods. Archaeology, codicology, paleography, epigraphy, textual analysis and interpretation illuminate each other in the scrutiny of the evidence concerning religious diversity in the ancient world. This MA track is unique due to both the interdisciplinary study of ancient Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions in one track, and the possibility of combining with a modern specialization. In it, students will encounter, firsthand, people from the ancient world and know how they grappled with religious diversity; they will envisage the varied religious roots of the modern world.