Jewish Traditions in Early Christian Literature, Volume 5 The Didache

Jewish Traditions in Early Christian Literature, Volume 5 The Didache
Author: H.W.M. van den Sandt
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2002-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004275185

This volume demonstrates that we should understand nascent Christianity and early Judaism as sharing to a large extent the same traditions. It throws fresh light on the Jewishness of the Two Ways teaching in Didache 1-6 as it presents a cautious reconstruction of the Jewish prototype of the Two Ways and traces the Jewish life situation in which the instruction could flourish. In the field of liturgical studies, a significant contribution is made to the discussion of Didache 7-10. It improves our understanding of the Jewish provenance and historical development of Baptism and Eucharist. The book also presents an intriguing look into the ministry of itinerant apostles and prophets (Didache 11-15) considering the larger environment of Jewish religious and cultural history.

Judaism and the Origins of Christianity

Judaism and the Origins of Christianity
Author: David Flusser
Publisher: Hebrew University Magnes Press
Total Pages: 770
Release: 1988
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

For more than three decades, Professor David Flusser of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem has pioneered new understandings of the Jewish background of early Christianity. Many have been fascinated by his unique monograph on Jesus, translated into several languages. Most of his scholarly articles in English, including some new contributions as well as many published in not easily accessible journals, have been collected in this one volume. A must for New Testament scholars, and students of early Judaism, it will also be welcomed by the many lay persons for whom Professor Flusser has provided illumination on the origins of Christian faith.

Studies in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity

Studies in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
Author: Pieter W. van der Horst
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2014-03-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004271112

Over the past 45 years Professor Pieter W. van der Horst contributed extensively to the study of ancient Judaism and early Christianity. The 24 papers in this volume, written since his early retirement in 2006, cover a wide range of topics, all of them concerning the religious world of Judaism and Christianity in the Hellenistic, Roman, and early Byzantine era. They reflect his research interests in Jewish epigraphy, Jewish interpretation of the Bible, Jewish prayer culture, the diaspora in Asia Minor, exegetical problems in the writings of Philo and Josephus, Samaritan history, texts from ancient Christianity which have received little attention (the poems of Cyrus of Panopolis, the Doctrina Jacobi nuper baptizati, the Letter of Mara bar Sarapion), and miscellanea such as the pagan myth of Jewish cannibalism, the meaning of the Greek expression ‘without God,’ the religious significance of sneezing in pagan antiquity, and the variety of stories about pious long-sleepers in the ancient world (pagan, Jewish, Christian).

The Rise of Christianity

The Rise of Christianity
Author: Rodney Stark
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 274
Release: 1997-05-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0060677015

This "fresh, blunt, and highly persuasive account of how the West was won—for Jesus" (Newsweek) is now available in paperback. Stark's provocative report challenges conventional wisdom and finds that Christianity's astounding dominance of the Western world arose from its offer of a better, more secure way of life. "Compelling reading" (Library Journal) that is sure to "generate spirited argument" (Publishers Weekly), this account of Christianity's remarkable growth within the Roman Empire is the subject of much fanfare. "Anyone who has puzzled over Christianity's rise to dominance...must read it." says Yale University's Wayne A. Meeks, for The Rise of Christianity makes a compelling case for startling conclusions. Combining his expertise in social science with historical evidence, and his insight into contemporary religion's appeal, Stark finds that early Christianity attracted the privileged rather than the poor, that most early converts were women or marginalized Jews—and ultimately "that Christianity was a success because it proved those who joined it with a more appealing, more assuring, happier, and perhaps longer life" (Andrew M. Greeley, University of Chicago).

In the Shadow of the Temple

In the Shadow of the Temple
Author: Oskar Skarsaune
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 455
Release: 2008-10-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0830828443

Oskar Skarsaune gives us a new look into the development of the early church and its practice by showing us the evidence of interaction between the early Christians and rabbinic Judaism. He offers numerous fascinating episodes and glimpses into this untold story.

Neither Jew nor Greek?

Neither Jew nor Greek?
Author: Judith Lieu
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2015-11-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567658821

A ground-breaking study in the formation of early Christian identity, by one of the world's leading scholars.In Neither Jew Nor Greek, Judith Lieu explores the formation and shaping of early Christian identity within Judaism and within the wider Graeco-Roman world in the period before 200 C.E. Lieu particularly examines the way that literary texts presented early Christianity. She combines this with interdisciplinary historical investigation and interaction with scholarship on Judaism in late Antiquity and on the Graeco-Roman world.The result is a highly significant contribution to four of the key questions in current New Testament scholarship: how did early Christian identity come to be formed? How should we best describe and understand the processes by which the Christian movement became separate from its Jewish origins? Was there anything special or different about the way women entered Judaism and early Christianity? How did martyrdom contribute to the construction of early Christian identity? The chapters in this volume have become classics in the study of the New Testament and for this Cornerstones edition Lieu provides a new introduction placing them within the academic debate as it is now.

Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: How to Write Their History

Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: How to Write Their History
Author: Peter J. Tomson
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 562
Release: 2014-08-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004278478

The papers in this volume are organized around the ambition to reboot the writing of history about Jews and Christians in the first two centuries CE. Many are convinced of the need for a new perspective on this crucial period that saw both the birth of rabbinic Judaism and apostolic Christianity and their parting of ways. Yet the traditional paradigm of Judaism and Christianity as being two totally different systems of life and thought still predominates in thought, handbooks, and programs of research and teaching. As a result, the sources are still being read as reflecting two separate histories, one Jewish and the other Christian. The contributors to the present work were invited to attempt to approach the ancient Jewish and Christian sources as belonging to one single history, precisely in order to get a better view of the process that separated both communities. In doing so, it is necessary to pay constant attention to the common factor affecting both communities: the Roman Empire. Roman history and Roman archaeology should provide the basis on which to study and write the shared history of Jews and Christians and the process of their separation. A basic intuition is that the series of wars between Jews and Romans between 66 and 135 CE – a phenomenon unrivalled in antiquity – must have played a major role in this process. Thus the papers are arranged around three focal points: (1) the varieties of Jewish and Christian expression in late Second Temple times, (2) the socio-economic, military, and ideological processes during the period of the revolts, and (3) the post-revolt Jewish and Christian identities that emerged. As such, the volume is part of a larger project that is to result in a source book and a history of Jews and Christians in the first and second centuries.