Lublin, Poland - November 2022 - On 23 and 24 November, the Research Center on Judaism of the Second Temple of the Catholic University of Lublin organized a scientific Conference entitled "From the Book of Henoch to the Fourth Sibylline Book", in commemoration of the life and work of the late Prof. Dr. Ryszard Rubinkiewicz, SDB (1939-2011). The symposium was organized on the initiative of Prof. Dr. Henryk Drawnel, SDB, founder of the Center and confrere of Fr. Rubinkiewicz, with the help of Dr. Fr Marcin Biegas and Dr. Michał Klukowski. The assembled group of Polish scholars, representing the most important Polish scientific centers, deliberated on the apocryphal literature of the Old Testament. The scientific environment in which the foundations of contemporary studies on this type of literature were formed is precisely the Catholic University of Lublin, where Fr. Rubinkiewicz worked from 1978 to 2011. With his work he laid the foundations for the study of the Old Testament Apocrypha in Poland, contributing to the development of this discipline at an international level. His edition of the Old Church Slavonic text of the Jewish Apocalypse of Abraham (1987), dating from the first century AD, is still a standard monograph in world science. The Department of Biblical Philology and Intertestamental Literature of the Catholic University of Lublin, which he founded, conducts extensive research. The conference also included reports on the apocalyptic Book of Henoch, which, starting from the 3rd century BC, opens a long list of apocalyptic compositions in ancient Israel that had a significant influence on the formation of eschatological and messianic ideas in the New Testament. Prof. Rubinkiewicz pioneered scientific research on this book in Poland and his monograph is still today the standard study on the context of the New Testament in relation to Jewish apocalyptic literature.

Fr. Henryk Drawnel, SDB