02/07/2026 18:30 - 19:30

HALL: Parenzo - A12

Contact: Benfatto M.

Chair: Benfatto M.

This panel invites papers examining how Jesus and the origins of Christianity were conceptualized within Deism, the Enlightenment, and related seventeenth- and eighteenth-century intellectual currents, as well as the reactions and forms of reception these interpretations provoked. From early deist attempts to reconstruct Christianity as a religion of reason and natural morality to Enlightenment portrayals of Jesus as philosopher, reformer, or moral exemplar, the period witnessed a profound rethinking of both his figure and the early Christian tradition. The panel also welcomes contributions addressing the role of early modern skepticism and the Radical Enlightenment, whose more disruptive critiques challenged traditional views of revelation, miracles, scriptural authority, and the historical Jesus.
The panel seeks to map the circulation and typology of writings that addressed Jesus and early Christianity within these movements, as well as the written and institutional responses they provoked from Catholic authorities, such as condemnations by the Index of Forbidden Books or interventions of the Holy Office. By tracing both the intellectual transformation and the historical reception of these interpretations, the panel explores how early modern thought negotiated the boundaries between faith and reason, belief and critique, history and myth, thereby shaping modern understandings of religion in the age of reason. The panel also aims to investigate the modes of reception and the various forms of reaction these themes elicited over time, how they were received within subsequent historiography, when key shifts occurred, and what motivations underpinned them, as well as the different ways in which such writings or topics were contested, appropriated, or reframed.