Christian Conceptions of Jewish Books

Christian Conceptions of Jewish Books
Author: Avner Shamir
Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press
Total Pages: 133
Release: 2011
Genre: History
ISBN: 8763507722

Explores how Christians understood the meaning and significance of Jewish books at the beginning of the sixteenth century. This book tells the story of the so-called Pfefferkorn affair, the attempt to confiscate and burn all Jewish post-biblical literature in the Holy Roman Empire in the years 1509-10.

Exile: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Conceptions

Exile: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Conceptions
Author: Bruce D. Chilton
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2021-12-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004497714

The exiles of Israel and Judah cast a long shadow over the biblical text and the whole subsequent history of Judaism. Scholars have long recognized the importance of the theme of exile for the Hebrew Bible. Indeed, critical study of the Old Testament has, at least since Wellhausen, been dominated by the Babylonian exile of Judah. In 586 BC, several factors, including the destruction of Jerusalem, the cessation of the sacrificial cult and of the monarchy, and the experience of the exile, began to cause a transformation of Israelite religion which supplied the contours of the larger Judaic framework within which the various forms of Judaism, including the early Christian movement, developed. Given the importance of the exile to the development of Judaism and Christianity even to the present day, this volume delves into the conceptions of exile which contributed to that development during the formative period.

Jewish Book - Christian Book

Jewish Book - Christian Book
Author: Ilona Steimann
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020
Genre: Christian Hebraists
ISBN: 9782503590745

Jewish Book - Christian Book: Hebrew Manuscripts in Transition between Jews and Christians in the Context of German Humanism is intended as a contribution to the history of the production, circulation, and reception of Hebrew materials outside of a Jewish context. An intriguing development in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth-century Christian Hebraism is how and why Christian scholars came to produce their own Hebrew books. Jewish Book - Christian Book: Hebrew Manuscripts in Transition between Jews and Christians in the Context of German Humanism offers a novel examination of this phenomenon in light of nearly unknown Hebrew manuscripts produced by German Hebraists in that period. Anticipating Hebraist printed editions, the Hebraist manuscript copies of Jewish texts represent one of the earliest attempts of Christians to independently form a stock of Jewish literature, which would meet their scholarly needs and interests, and embody a unique encounter of Jewish and Christian views of the Hebrew text and book. How Hebraist copyists coped with the inherent Jewishness of the Hebrew texts and in what ways they transformed and adapted them both textually and materially to serve Christian audience are among the key questions discussed in this study.

Chosen and Unchosen

Chosen and Unchosen
Author: Joel N. Lohr
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2009-06-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1575066157

Winner of the 2011 RBY Scott Award from the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies/Société canadienne des études bibliques The God of the Bible favors a national people, Israel, and this is at the cost of the other nations. In fact, not being Israel usually means humiliation or destruction or simply being ignored by God. Reading the text “with the grain” or placing oneself within the chosen’s perspective may seem very well until one considers the unchosen. There is much regarding the unchosen that has not been explored in scholarly research, but in this important work, Lohr attempts to make sense of the question of election and nonelection in the OT as a Christian interpreter and with a concern for the history of interpretation and Jewish-Christian dialogue. He also corrects a Christian tendency to read election and nonelection as love and damnation, respectively, a perception that is altogether foreign to the OT itself. The unchosen are important to the overall world view of Scripture and, although election entails exclusion, and God’s love for the one people Israel is a love in contrast to others, it does not follow that the unchosen fall outside of the economy of God’s purposes, his workings, or his ways. The unchosen often face important tests of their own and have a responsibility to God and the chosen, however much this idea defies modern-day notions of fairness. It is a central idea of Scripture that already appears in the original call of and promises made to Abram and something that, if ignored, places our larger understanding of God at risk. Equally important, if contemporary faith communities (both Jewish and Christian) form their understanding of “the other” on a faulty reading of Scripture regarding the unchosen, chaos and hatred can ensue. The political and religious climate of our contemporary world has never presented a more important time to get this matter right. Scholars and students alike are finding Chosen and Unchosen to be an indispensable resource as they mull over these difficult questions.

Jewish Christianity

Jewish Christianity
Author: Matt Jackson-McCabe
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2020-06-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0300180136

A fresh exploration of the category Jewish Christianity, from its invention in the Enlightenment to contemporary debates For hundreds of years, historians have been asking fundamental questions about the separation of Christianity from Judaism in antiquity. Matt Jackson-McCabe argues provocatively that the concept "Jewish Christianity," which has been central to scholarly reconstructions, represents an enduring legacy of Christian apologetics. Freethinkers of the English Enlightenment created this category as a means of isolating a distinctly Christian religion from what otherwise appeared to be the Jewish culture of Jesus and the apostles. Tracing the development of this patently modern concept of a Jewish Christianity from its origins to early twenty-first-century scholarship, Jackson-McCabe shows how a category that began as a way to reimagine the apologetic notion of an authoritative "original Christianity" continues to cause problems in the contemporary study of Jewish and Christian antiquity. He draws on promising new approaches to Christianity and Judaism as socially constructed terms of identity to argue that historians would do better to leave the concept of Jewish Christianity behind.

The Jewish Jesus

The Jewish Jesus
Author: Peter Schäfer
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2014-02-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0691160953

How the rise of Christianity profoundly influenced the development of Judaism in late antiquity In late antiquity, as Christianity emerged from Judaism, it was not only the new religion that was being influenced by the old. The rise and revolutionary challenge of Christianity also had a profound influence on rabbinic Judaism, which was itself just emerging and, like Christianity, trying to shape its own identity. In The Jewish Jesus, Peter Schäfer reveals the crucial ways in which various Jewish heresies, including Christianity, affected the development of rabbinic Judaism. He even shows that some of the ideas that the rabbis appropriated from Christianity were actually reappropriated Jewish ideas. The result is a demonstration of the deep mutual influence between the sister religions, one that calls into question hard and fast distinctions between orthodoxy and heresy, and even Judaism and Christianity, during the first centuries CE.

Living Together, Living Apart

Living Together, Living Apart
Author: Jonathan Elukin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2013-12-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691162069

This book challenges the standard conception of the Middle Ages as a time of persecution for Jews. Jonathan Elukin traces the experience of Jews in Europe from late antiquity through the Renaissance and Reformation, revealing how the pluralism of medieval society allowed Jews to feel part of their local communities despite recurrent expressions of hatred against them. Elukin shows that Jews and Christians coexisted more or less peacefully for much of the Middle Ages, and that the violence directed at Jews was largely isolated and did not undermine their participation in the daily rhythms of European society. The extraordinary picture that emerges is one of Jews living comfortably among their Christian neighbors, working with Christians, and occasionally cultivating lasting friendships even as Christian culture often demonized Jews. As Elukin makes clear, the expulsions of Jews from England, France, Spain, and elsewhere were not the inevitable culmination of persecution, but arose from the religious and political expediencies of particular rulers. He demonstrates that the history of successful Jewish-Christian interaction in the Middle Ages in fact laid the social foundations that gave rise to the Jewish communities of modern Europe. Elukin compels us to rethink our assumptions about this fascinating period in history, offering us a new lens through which to appreciate the rich complexities of the Jewish experience in medieval Christendom.

The Concept of Just War in Judaism, Christianity and Islam

The Concept of Just War in Judaism, Christianity and Islam
Author: Georges Tamer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2021-09-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3110733137

For Jews, Christians and Muslims, as for all human beings, military conflicts and war remain part of the reality of the world. The authoritative writings of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, namely the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Koran, as well as the theological and philosophical traditions based on them, bear witness to this fact. Showing the influence of different historical political situations, various views – sometimes quite similar, sometimes more divergent -- have developed in the three religions to justify the waging of war under certain circumstances. Such views have also been integrated in different ways into legal systems while, in certain cases, theologies have provide legitimation for military expansion and atrocities. The aim of the volume The Concept of Just War in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is to explore the respective understanding of “just war” in each one of these three religions and to make their commonalities and differences discursively visible. In addition, it highlights and explains the significance of the topic to the present time. Can the concepts developed in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions in order to justify war, serve as a foundation for contemporary peace ethics? Or do religious arguments always add fuel to the fire in armed conflict? The contributions in this volume will help provide answers to these and other socially and politically relevant questions.

Understanding the Jewish Roots of Christianity

Understanding the Jewish Roots of Christianity
Author: Gerald McDermott
Publisher: Lexham Press
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2021-03-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1683594622

How Jewish is Christianity? The question of how Jesus' followers relate to Judaism has been a matter of debate since Jesus first sparred with the Pharisees. The controversy has not abated, taking many forms over the centuries. In the decades following the Holocaust, scholars and theologians reconsidered the Jewish origins and character of Christianity, finding points of continuity. Understanding the Jewish Roots of Christianity advances this discussion by freshly reassessing the issues. Did Jesus intend to form a new religion? Did Paul abrogate the Jewish law? Does the New Testament condemn Judaism? How and when did Christianity split from Judaism? How should Jewish believers in Jesus relate to a largely gentile church? What meaning do the Jewish origins of Christianity have for theology and practice today? In this volume, a variety of leading scholars and theologians explore the relationship of Judaism and Christianity through biblical, historical, theological, and ecclesiological angles. This cutting-edge scholarship will enrich readers' understanding of this centuries-old debate.