Jews and Gentiles in the Early Jesus Movement

Jews and Gentiles in the Early Jesus Movement
Author: A. Bibliowicz
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 491
Release: 2013-04-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1137281103

This volume offers new insights on Jewish-Gentile relations and the evolution of belief in the early Jesus movement, suggesting that the New Testament reflects the early stages of a Gentile challenge to the authority and legitimacy of the descendants of Jesus' disciples and first followers as the exclusive guardians and interpreters of his legacy.

Christian Origins and the Establishment of the Early Jesus Movement

Christian Origins and the Establishment of the Early Jesus Movement
Author: Stanley E. Porter
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 597
Release: 2018-08-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004372741

Christian Origins and the Establishment of the Early Jesus Movement explores the events, people, and writings surrounding the founding of the early Jesus movement in the mid to late first century. The essays are divided into four parts, focused upon the movement’s formation, the production of its early Gospels, description of the Jesus movement itself, and the Jewish mission and its literature. This collection of essays includes chapters by a global cast of scholars from a variety of methodological and critical viewpoints, and continues the important Early Christianity in its Hellenistic Context series.

Jesus Movement

Jesus Movement
Author: Ekkehard Stegemann
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 564
Release: 1999-08-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780567086884

This work by two New Testament scholars is the first comprehensive social history of the earliest churches. Integrating the historical and social data, they locate the ancient Galileans, Judeans, and the Jesus movement in their respective matrices. The Stegemanns deal with such issues as conflict between the messianic communities and the rest of Judaism, religious pluralism, social stratification, group composition, gender division, ancient economics, and urban/rurual distinctions.

Attitudes to Gentiles in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity

Attitudes to Gentiles in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
Author: David C. Sim
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2014-01-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567035786

This volume describes the attitudes towards Gentiles in both ancient Judaism and the early Christian tradition. The Jewish relationship with and views about the Gentiles played an important part in Jewish self-definition, especially in the Diaspora where Jews formed the minority among larger Gentile populations. Jewish attitudes towards the Gentiles can be found in the writings of prominent Jewish authors (Josephus and Philo), sectarian movements and texts (the Qumran community, apocalyptic literature, Jesus) and in Jewish institutions such as the Jerusalem Temple and the synagogue. In the Christian tradition, which began as a Jewish movement but developed quickly into a predominantly Gentile tradition, the role and status of Gentile believers in Jesus was always of crucial significance. Did Gentile believers need to convert to Judaism as an essential component of their affiliation with Jesus, or had the appearance of the messiah rendered such distinctions invalid? This volume assesses the wide variety of viewpoints in terms of attitudes towards Gentiles and the status and expectations of Gentiles in the Christian church.

The Early Jesus Movement and Its Parties

The Early Jesus Movement and Its Parties
Author: Harry W. Eberts
Publisher: YBK Publishers, Inc.
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2009
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 098240123X

What have generations of New Testament scholars been hiding from us over all the ages? Harry and Paul Eberts challenge readers to rethink the New Testament. Most scholars have presumed there was a reasonably unified movement among the Christian churches led by Peter, Paul, James, and Philip immediately following Jesus' death and resurrection. The Eberts suggest that at least four parties vied with each other to attract converts to the belief that Jesus is the Christ: Peter/James/Stephen, Philip, and Apollos/ and Paul and Barnabas. Up to now, most scholars have presumed the Gospels to be at least somewhat "additive" in developing the character of Jesus. The Eberts suggest that each Gospel represents the viewpoint of one of the four parties, thus presenting differing views of the meaning of Jesus' life, his death, and his resurrection. There has been the regular presumption that St. Paul's letters were unified statements of his views of beliefs, behaviors, and practices in the early churches. The Eberts instead suggest that the letters show a shifting over time in Paul's theology and ethics as the apostles struggled with the other three Christian parties and with Gentiles to convert nonbelievers to Christianity. Harry and Paul Eberts are brothers devoted to researching the New Testament. Both are Yale Divinity School graduates.

When Christians Were Jews

When Christians Were Jews
Author: Paula Fredriksen
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2018-10-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0300240740

A compelling account of Christianity’s Jewish beginnings, from one of the world’s leading scholars of ancient religion How did a group of charismatic, apocalyptic Jewish missionaries, working to prepare their world for the impending realization of God's promises to Israel, end up inaugurating a movement that would grow into the gentile church? Committed to Jesus’s prophecy—“The Kingdom of God is at hand!”—they were, in their own eyes, history's last generation. But in history's eyes, they became the first Christians. In this electrifying social and intellectual history, Paula Fredriksen answers this question by reconstructing the life of the earliest Jerusalem community. As her account arcs from this group’s hopeful celebration of Passover with Jesus, through their bitter controversies that fragmented the movement’s midcentury missions, to the city’s fiery end in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, she brings this vibrant apostolic community to life. Fredriksen offers a vivid portrait both of this temple-centered messianic movement and of the bedrock convictions that animated and sustained it.

The Origin and Meaning of Ekklēsia in the Early Jesus Movement

The Origin and Meaning of Ekklēsia in the Early Jesus Movement
Author: Ralph J. Korner
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2017-06-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004344993

In The Origin and Meaning of Ekklēsia in the Early Jesus Movement, Ralph J. Korner explores the ideological implications of Christ-follower associations self-designating collectively as ekklēsiai. Politically, Korner’s inscriptional research suggests that an association named ekklēsia would have been perceived as a positive, rather than as a counter-imperial, participant within Imperial Greek cities. Socio-religiously, Korner argues that there was no universal ekklēsia to which all first generation Christ-followers belonged; ekklēsia was a permanent group designation used by Paul’s associations. Ethno-religiously, Korner contends that ekklēsia usage by intra muros groups within pluriform Second Temple Judaism problematizes suggestions, not least at the institutional level, that Paul was “parting ways” with Judaism(s), ‘Jewishness’, or Jewish organizational forms.

The Birth of Christianity from the Matrix of Judaism

The Birth of Christianity from the Matrix of Judaism
Author: Walter Ziffer
Publisher: Author House
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2006-06-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1467816221

The book presents the essential information necessary for understanding how Christianity developed from being a Jewish sect to becoming an independent religion. While religious differences played an important role in the separation of Jews and Christians in the first and second centuries of the Common Era, there were also political, social and economic factors at work that contributed to the parting of the ways of these two groups. An effort was made to keep technical jargon to a minimum in this work. Thus we have here a book that is easily understood and yet scientifically sound. Footnotes should help steer the interested reader toward more specialized treatments of this or that sub-theme. In the end it is hoped that the book will be a stepping stone toward a more respectful and creative partnership between Christians and Jews in the neverending task of tikkun olam, the healing of our ailing world.

From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God

From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God
Author: Maurice Casey
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Total Pages: 204
Release: 1991-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780664227654

In From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God, Maurice Casey suggests a new theory as to why New Testament Christology developed as it did. In making his argument, Casey pays particular attention to the culture of Jesus and the earliest Christians.