Disinheriting the Jews is a scholarly work of great interest and significance for both Christians and Jews. Jeffery Siker shows how strongly the figure of Abraham has shaped our religious identities. He also uses the portrayals of Abraham by early Christians as a new means of understanding the dynamics involved in the church's separation and estrangement from Judaism. Siker argues that the separation was precipitated by historical contingencies more so than by Christian identity, and in so doing suggests self-corrections that could mend the rift between Christianity and Judaism.
Justin Martyr, a second-century Gentile Christian apologist, was active in the Christian-Jewish propaganda war to convert each other and the pagans. He radicalized the ideas of St. Paul on the divine Election, Abraham, the Pentateuch, and the Gentiles. Justin's background, sources, and thought, and his place in the inter-religious propaganda war, are discussed, as are the irreconcilable views of Jesus and Paul on the Pentateuch and the Gentiles. Justin Martyr and the Jews considers the place of Paul and Justin's teachings in today's Christian-Jewish dialogue about the roots of early Christian Antisemitism, showing that the presuppositions of Paul and Justin must be abandoned if Christians and Jews today are to reach true understanding.
Most studies of Jews in medieval England begin with the year 1066, when Jews first arrived on English soil. Yet the absence of Jews in England before the conquest did not prevent early English authors from writing obsessively about them. Using material from the writings of the Church Fathers, contemporary continental sources, widespread cultural stereotypes, and their own imaginations, their depictions of Jews reflected their own politico-theological experiences. The thirteen essays in Imagining the Jew in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture examine visual and textual representations of Jews, the translation and interpretation of Scripture, the use of Hebrew words and etymologies, and the treatment of Jewish spaces and landmarks. By studying the “imaginary Jews” of Anglo-Saxon England, they offer new perspectives on the treatment of race, religion, and ethnicity in pre- and post-conquest literature and culture.
Top scholars celebrate the enduring heritage in learning bequeathed by Anthony J. Saldarini (1941-2001). Twenty-nine essays focus on the areas of Christianity and Judaism to which Dr. Saldarini was devoted: earliest Christianity, Judaism in late antiquity, and the interchange between Judaism and Christianity then and now. The print edition is available as a set of two volumes (9789004136595).
Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland takes issue with historians' common contention that the Catholic Church triumphed in Counter-reformation Poland. In fact, the Church's own sources show that the story is far more complex. From the rise of the Reformation and the rapid dissemination of these new ideas through printing, the Catholic Church was overcome with a strong sense of insecurity. The 'infidel Jews, enemies of Christianity' became symbols of the Church's weakness and, simultaneously, instruments of its defence against all of its other adversaries. This process helped form a Polish identity that led, in the case of Jews, to racial anti-Semitism and to the exclusion of Jews from the category of Poles. This book portrays Jews not only as victims of Church persecution but as active participants in Polish society who as allies of the nobles, placed in positions of power, had more influence than has been recognised.
Debate abounds on the future of Israel and Israel's relation to the church, not only between dispensationalists and non-dispensationalists, but among dispensationalists themselves. In the past that debate has sometimes been acrimonious, and proponents of the differing viewpoints have found little common ground. In recent years, however, views have been modified and developed so that the dialogue is increasingly by cooperation and a mutual exploration of diverse ideas. The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism is intended to enlighten the debate in that same irenic spirit. The book is solidly dispensational in perspective in affirming that the Old Testament prophecies are completely fulfilled in the future, that the nation of Israel has a prophetic future, and that Israel is not the church. Dr. Saucy departs from classic dispensationalism, however, in showing that (1) the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy begins in the present church age, and (2) the church is not a parenthesis in God's program but represents a continuity with the Old Testament messianic program. This modified dispensationalism seeks to satisfy many of the objections of non-dispensational approaches to eschatology while retaining the crucial elements of biblical interpretation that characterize dispensational thought.
By exploring how Martin Luther, Martin Bucer, and John Calvin interpreted a set of eight messianic psalms (Psalms 2, 8, 16, 22, 45, 72, 110, 188), Sujin Pak elucidates key debates about Christological exegesis during the era of the Protestant reformation. More particularly, Pak examines the exegeses of Luther, Bucer, and Calvin in order to (a) reveal their particular theological emphases and reading strategies, (b) identify their debates over the use of Jewish exegesis and the factors leading to charges of 'judaizing' leveled against Calvin, and (c) demonstrate how Psalms reading and the accusation of judaizing serve distinctive purposes of confessional identity formation. In this way, she portrays the beginnings of those distinctive trends that separated Lutheran and Reformed exegetical principles.
In the Gospel of John, the character of Jesus repeatedly comes into conflict with a group pejoratively designated as 'the Jews'. In chapter 8 of the Gospel this conflict could be said to reach a head, with Jesus labeling the Jews as children 'of the devil' (8:44) - a verse often cited as epitomizing early Christian anti-Judaism. Using methods derived from modern and post-modern literary criticism Ruth Sheridan examines textual allusions to the biblical figures of Cain and Abraham in John 8:1-59. She pays particular attention to how these allusions give shape to the Gospel's alleged and infamous anti-Judaism (exemplified in John 8:44). Moreover, the book uniquely studies the subsequent reception in the Patristic and Rabbinic literature, not only of John 8, but also of the figures of Cain and Abraham. It shows how these figures are linked in Christian and Jewish imagination in the formative centuries in which the two religions came into definition.
This volume is part of a series which provides a fundamental resource for feminist biblical scholarship, containing a comprehensive selection of essays, both reprinted and specially written for the series, by leading feminist scholars. The contributors to this volume are Lyn Bechtel, Mark Bredin, Athalya Brenner, Edna Brocke, Carole Fontaine, Lillian Klein, Amy-Jill Levine, Judith Lieu, Heather McKay, Adele Reinhartz, Jane Schaberg, Marla Selvidge, Leonore Siegele-Wenschkewitz, Beverly Stratton, Arie Troost, Pieter van der Horst, and Bea Wyler.
A number of passages in the Qur'an criticize Jews and Christians, from claims of exclusive salvation and charges of Jewish and Christian falsification of revelation to cautions against the taking of Jews and Christians as patrons, allies, or intimates. Mun'im Sirry offers a novel exploration of these polemical passages, which have long been regarded as obstacles to peaceable interreligious relations, through the lens of twentieth-century tafsir (exegesis). He considers such essential questions as: How have modern contexts shaped Muslim reformers' understanding of the Qur'an, and how have the reformers' interpretations recontextualized these passages? Can the Qur'an's polemical texts be interpreted fruitfully for interactions among religious communities in the modern world? Sirry also reflects on the various definitions of apologetic or polemic as relevant sacred texts and analyzes reformist tafsirs with careful attention to argument, literary context, and rhetoric in order to illuminate the methods, positions, and horizons of the exegeses. Scriptural Polemics provides both a critical engagement with the tafsirs and a lucid and original examination of Qur'anic language, logic, and dilemmas, showing how the dynamic and varied reformist interpretations of these passages open the way for a less polemical approach to other religions.
"Jewish-Christianity" is a contested category in current research. But for precisely this reason, it may offer a powerful lens through which to rethink the history of Jewish/Christian relations. Traditionally, Jewish-Christianity has been studied as part of the origins and early diversity of Christianity. Collecting revised versions of previously published articles together with new materials, Annette Yoshiko Reed reconsiders Jewish-Christianity in the context of Late Antiquity and in conversation with Jewish studies. She brings further attention to understudied texts and traditions from Late Antiquity that do not fit neatly into present day notions of Christianity as distinct from Judaism. In the process, she uses these materials to probe the power and limits of our modern assumptions about religion and identity.
What were Jews saying and doing about the followers of Jesus in the first two centuries? In this provocative and comprehensive study, Claudia Setzer argues persuasively that Jews saw the early followers of Jesus as Jews for some time after the Christians viewed themselves as separate from the larger Jewish communities. This book provides historical context and nuanced exegesis of texts that continue to be "trouble spots" in Jewish-Christian relations. It illuminates the diverse strands of early anti-Judaism while providing the reader with some surprises.
