Earliest Christianity within the Boundaries of Judaism

Earliest Christianity within the Boundaries of Judaism
Author: Alan Avery-Peck
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 501
Release: 2016-02-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004310339

Twenty-two essays, written by top scholars in the fields of early Christianity and Judaism, focus on methodological issues, earliest Christianity in its Judaic setting, Gospel studies, and history and meaning in later Christianity. These essays honor Bruce Chilton, recognizing his seminal contribution to the study of earliest Christianity in its Judaic setting. Chilton’s scholarship has established innovative approaches to reconstructing the life of Jesus, a Jew whose religious ideology developed and therefore must be understood within the Judaism of the first centuries. Following upon Chilton’s approaches and insights, the essays collected here illustrate the centrality of the literatures of early Judaism to the critical exegesis of the New Testament and other writings of early Christianity.

Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Judaism and Christianity

Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Judaism and Christianity
Author: Graham Stanton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 388
Release: 1998-05-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 052159037X

The essays in this book consider issues of tolerance and intolerance faced by Jews and Christians between approximately 200 BCE and 200 CE. Several chapters are concerned with many different aspects of early Jewish-Christian relationships. Five scholars, however, take a difference tack and discuss how Jews and Christians defined themselves against the pagan world. As minority groups, both Jews and Christians had to work out ways of co-existing with their Graeco-Roman neighbours. Relationships with those neighbours were often strained, but even within both Jewish and Christian circles, issues of tolerance and intolerance surfaced regularly. So it is appropriate that some other contributors should consider 'inner-Jewish' relationships, and that some should be concerned with Christian sects.

The Early Christian Book (CUA Studies in Early Christianity)

The Early Christian Book (CUA Studies in Early Christianity)
Author: William E. Klingshirn
Publisher: CUA Press
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2007
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0813214866

Written by experts in the field, the essays in this volume examine the early Christian book from a wide range of disciplines: religion, art history, history, Near Eastern studies, and classics.

Crossing Boundaries in Early Judaism and Christianity

Crossing Boundaries in Early Judaism and Christianity
Author: Kimberley Stratton
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2016-10-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004334491

This volume celebrates the scholarship of Alan Segal. During his prolific career, Alan published ground-breaking studies that shifted scholarly conversations about Christianity, rabbinic Judaism, Hellenism and Gnosticism. Like the subjects of his research, Alan crossed many boundaries. He understood that religions do not operate in academically defined silos, but in complex societies populated by complicated human beings. Alan’s work engaged with a variety of social-scientific theories that illuminated ancient sources and enabled him to reveal new angles on familiar material. This interdisciplinary approach enabled Alan to propose often controversial theories about Jewish and Christian origins. A new generation of scholars has been nurtured on this approach and the fields of early Judaism and Christianity emerge radically redefined as a result.

Within Judaism? Interpretive Trajectories in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from the First to the Twenty-First Century

Within Judaism? Interpretive Trajectories in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from the First to the Twenty-First Century
Author: Karin Hedner Zetterholm
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 500
Release: 2023-11-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1978715072

This book charts the shifting boundaries of Judaism from antiquity to the modern period in order to bring clarity to what scholars mean when they claim that ancient texts or groups are “within Judaism,” as well as exploring how rabbinic Jews, Christians, and Muslims have negotiated and renegotiated what Judaism is and is not in order to form their own identities. Belief in Jesus as the Messiah was seen as part of first-century Judaism, but by the fourth or fifth century, the boundaries had shifted and adherence to Jesus came to be seen as outside of Judaism. Resituating New Testament texts within first- or second-century Judaism is an historical exercise that may broaden our view of what Judaism looked like in the early centuries CE, but normatively these texts remain within Christianity because of their reception history. The historical “within Judaism” perspective, however, has the potential to challenge and reshape the theology of contemporary Christianity while at the same time the long-held consensus that belief in Jesus cannot belong within Judaism is again challenged by the modern Messianic Jewish movement.

Salvation is from the Jews (John 4:22)

Salvation is from the Jews (John 4:22)
Author: Aaron Milavec
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2007
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780814659892

Growing up in an ethnic suburb in Cleveland, Aaron Milavec was an impressionable adolescent whose religious and cultural influences made it natural for him to pity, blame, and despise Jews. All of that began to change in 1955 when Mr. Martin, a Jewish merchant, hired Milavec as a stock boy. Milavec's initial anxieties over working for a Jew surprisingly gave way to profound personal admiration. This, in turn, plunged Milavec into a troubling theological dilemma: How could God consign Mr. Martin to eternal hellfire due to his ancestral role in the death of Jesus when it was clear that Mr. Martin would not harm me, a Christian, even in small ways? This book is not for the faint-hearted. Most Christians imagine that the poison of anti-Judaism has been largely eliminated. In contrast, Milavec reveals how this poison has gone underground--disfiguring not only the role of Israel in God's plan of salvation but also horribly twisting the faith, the forgiveness, and the salvation that Christians find through Jesus Christ. This painful realization serves as the necessary first step for our healing. At each step of the way, Milavec's sure hand builds bridges of mutual understanding that enable both Christians and Jews to cross the chasm of distrust and distortion that has infected both church and synagogue over the centuries. In the end, Milavec securely brings his readers to that place where Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity can again be admired as sister religions intimately united to one other in God's drama of salvation.

The Soul of Judaism

The Soul of Judaism
Author: Bruce D. Haynes
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2018-08-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1479811238

Explores the full diversity of Black Jews, including bi-racial Jews of both matrilineal and patrilineal descent; adoptees; black converts to Judaism; and Black Hebrews and Israelites, who trace their Jewish roots to Africa and challenge the dominant western paradigm of Jews as white and of European descent. The book showcases the lives of Black Jews, demonstrating that racial ascription has been shaping Jewish selfhood for centuries. It reassesses the boundaries between race and ethnicity, offering insight into how ethnicity can be understood only in relation to racialization and the one-drop rule. Within this context, Black Jewish individuals strive to assert their dual identities and find acceptance within their communities. Putting to rest the notion that Jews are white and the Black Jews are therefore a contradiction, the volume argues that we cannot pigeonhole Black Hebrews and Israelites as exotic, militant, and nationalistic sects outside the boundaries of mainstream Jewish thought and community life. it spurs us to consider the significance of the growing population of self-identified Black Jews and its implications for the future of American Jewry.

Judaism and Christianity in First-Century Rome

Judaism and Christianity in First-Century Rome
Author: Karl P. Donfried
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2003-12-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1592444423

Rome, as the center of the first-century world, was home to numerous ethnic groups, among which were both Jews and Christians. The dealings of the Roman government with these two groups, and their dealings with each other, are the focus of this engaging book. Peter Richardson shows that inscriptions expand considerably our knowledge about synagogues in Rome. L. Michael White discusses what the archeological epigraphic evidence reveals about the synagogue and society of Ostia. Graydon F. Snyder explores the them of inculturation, looking closely at the level of interaction of Jews with non-Jews in Rome and of Christians with Roman culture. Leonard Victor Rutgers examines the inconsistent nature of Rome's legal policies toward the Jews. Rudolf Braendle and Ekkehard W. Stegemann detail the formation of the first Christian congregations already present. James S. Jeffers describes the family life of Jews and Christians in Rome. Carolyn Osiek discusses, from an insightful and unique perspective, the social character of Roman Christianity. James C. Walters considers the evolving relations between Christians and non-Christian Jews in Rome and how their interactions were affected by Roman intervention. William L. Lane traces the continuities and discontinuities in Roman Christianity in the period from Nero to Nerva. Finally, Chrys C. Caragounis, finding clues in Romans and '1 Clement', challenges much of the consensus concerning the social situation of Roman Christianity. Based on the latest biblical and historical scholarship and archaeological evidence, this volume will be a valuable resource for students of first-century Judaism and Christianity.

Early Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism

Early Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism
Author: Peder Borgen
Publisher: Burns & Oates
Total Pages: 400
Release: 1996
Genre: Christian converts from Judaism
ISBN:

"Professor Borgen introduces fresh perspectives into debates on central issues: assimilation and separation, mission and proselytism, John and the Synoptics, exegesis of the Old Testament, Jewish and Christian 'mystical' ascent and their religious and political functions. He explores the complexity of Judaism both in Palestine and in the Diaspora, and looks at the variety of tendencies which existed within Christianity as it emerged from Judaism and spread out into other nations." "In studies on Paul's letters and the Acts of the Apostles, he deals with catalogues of vices and the so-called Apostolic Decree, and on different views on the role of the reception of the Spirit by Christian converts. Finally, Professor Borgen draws on extensive material from Jewish sources to illuminate themes related to the Book of Revelation; and makes comparison between the reports by Philo and John the Seer on their own heavenly visionary ascents."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Firstborn Son in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity

The Firstborn Son in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
Author: Kyu Seop Kim
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2019-01-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 900439494X

Despite scholars’ ongoing historical and sociological investigations into the ancient family, the right and the status of the firstborn son have been rarely explored by NT scholars, and this topic has not attracted the careful attention that it deserves. This work offers a study of the meaning of the firstborn son in the New Testament paying specific attention to the concept of primogeniture in the Old Testament and Jewish literature. This study argues that primogeniture was a unique institution in Jewish society, and that the title of the firstborn son indicates his access to the promise of Israel, and is associated with the right of the inheritance (i.e., primogeniture) including the Land and the special status of Israel.