Jewish Christian Research Articles

Righteous Bloodshed, Matthew's Passion Narrative, and the Temple's Destruction: Lamentations as a Matthean Intertext

(ProQuest Information and Learning: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) Jesus' so-called cry of dereliction in Matt 27:46 serves as the climactic finale for a series of clear allusions to and citations of Psalm 22 in Matthews passion narrative. This psalm's extensive presence throughout Matthews depiction of the crucifixion often leads scholars to conclude that Matthew's use of the phrase wagging the head in 27:39 also derives from Psalm 22 (v. 7). Yet this same derisive idiom occurs at several other points in Jewish Scripture,1 most notably in Lam 2:15, a verse that contains language remarkably similar to Matt 27:39. While many commentators note the resemblance between Matthew and Lamentations at this point,2 demonstrating an allusion to Lamentations here has proven elusive. Relatively few scholars posit any actual influence from Lamentations, and even fewer have attempted to explore the implications of such an allusion.3 In this article I will argue that Matt 27:39 does in fact allude to Lam 2:15.4 I hope to show, moreover, that Matthew explicitly draws on Lamentations in his account of the events leading up to the crucifixion in order to portray Jesus' death as the primary act of righteous bloodshed by the hands of the religious authorities in Jerusalem that results in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. To see this, it will be necessary to demonstrate the way in which Matthew employs Lamentations as an important and relatively pervasive intertext5 in his depiction of Jesus' lament over Jerusalem, trial, and passion (especially in chs. 23 and 27). If it can be shown that Matthew utilizes Lamentations in this way, then this observation suggests first that the textual variants in Matt 27:4 and 27:24 in which various manuscripts apply the adjective ... (righteous) to Jesus need to be reassessed. Second, and more importantly, recognizing Matthew's use of Lamentations in passages related to and including his passion narrative calls into question the commonly held view that these portions of Matthew represent early Christian anti-Judaism and further corroborates the work of those who have cautioned against jumping too quickly to such an interpretation.6 Rather than anti-Judaism, Matthew's appeal to Lamentations and thus also to Jeremiah to explain the link between the temple's destruction and Jesus' crucifixion is better characterized as an instance of intra-Jewish polemic deliberately modeled on the prophetic tradition in Jewish Scripture.7 II. LAMENTATIONS AND THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM IN 70 C.E. If Lamentations formed a significant part of the framework or encyclopedia8 for the Jewish community during the time that Matthew penned his gospel, then the likelihood increases that Matthew-and those to whom he wrote-could have known this text well enough for meaningful allusions to the book to be recognized and understood. Since Matthew probably wrote his Gospel for Jewish Christians after the momentous events of 70 c.E.,9 there is good reason to think that Lamentations would have been a prominent part of the encyclopedia of Matthew's community. After the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E., one would expect mourning Jews to turn to Lamentations with renewed interest. It would likely be in the religious cultural air.10 Two observations support this expectation. First, Josephus provides evidence that after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, people connected that event with the writings of Jeremiah. In his Jewish Antiquities (10.79), Josephus writes of Jeremiah, .... This prophet also publicly proclaimed the sufferings to come to the city [Jerusalem], by leaving behind in writings both the capture [of Jerusalem] that has come about in our time, and the taking [of it] by Babylon. (My translation) Josephus probably refers here to the book of Lamentations.11 Yet even if his reference looks more generally to the corpus of Jeremiah, this comment clearly establishes that links were being made between Jeremiah/the first destruction of Jerusalem and the second destruction in 70 C. …

Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis of Romans 9–11 in the Light of Jewish–Christian Understanding

This article focuses on Karl Barth’s exegesis of Rom. 9–11 in Church Dogmatics II/2. After locating Barth’s contribution both within its original context and within Barthian scholarship, the article moves to a reading of Barth’s exegesis. The importance of Barth’s theological exegesis is his insistence that we engage with the subject matter of Paul’s text. In this cause I expose Barth’s exegesis of Rom. 9–11 to two questions inspired by the quest for improved Jewish–Christian understanding. First, what kind of contribution to Jewish–Christian understanding might Barth’s exegesis make? Second, what theological, hermeneutical and ethical issues does Barth’s example provoke us to think about in relation to reading Rom. 9–11? Barth’s exegetical legacy, I conclude, contains both promise and risk, a feature that demonstrates faithfulness to the destabilizing ways of Rom. 9–11.

Interfaith Families; Personal Stories of Jewish–Christian Intermarriage – Jane Kaplan

Book reviewed: Interfaith Families; Personal Stories of Jewish–Christian Intermarriage, Jane Kaplan, Seabury Books 2005 (1‐59627‐011‐X), xv + 237 pp., pb $20.00

A Dictionary of Jewish–Christian Relations. Edited by Edward Kessler and Neil Wenborn. Pp. xxix + 507. Illustrated. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. isbn 0 521 82692 6. £120/$195

This alphabetical reference work contains both biographical and thematic entries. It also has seven maps and a substantial bibliography, as well as an index of names. More than a hundred authors have contributed to the book, among them distinguished scholars and household names in the area of Jewish–Christian relations. Among the longest thematic entries, some of which are virtually short articles, are those concerned with the arts. ‘Music’ (A. Wood) begins by pointing out how little has been written on Jewish–Christian relations in music, and proceeds to offer a stimulating survey of the subject. ‘Art’ (R. M. Jensen) compares Christian and Jewish attitudes to representational art down the centuries, considers possible mutual influences, and mentions hostile medieval representations of Jews in Christian art; only a few lines are devoted to the modern period. ‘Architecture’ (R. McCann) compares and contrasts Jewish and Christian religious buildings (such as St Paul's Cathedral and the Bevis Marks synagogue in London), with a strong emphasis on the similarities. J. T. Pawlikowski, a veteran writer on Jewish–Christian relations, contributes a series of authoritative articles, including ‘Anti-Judaism’, ‘Antisemitism’, ‘Christ and Christology’, and ‘Ethics’. No less authoritative are those by P. Ochs on ‘God’, M. Forward on ‘Jesus’, A. Eckardt on ‘Judaism, Christian perspectives on’, H. P. Fry on ‘Mission’, and M. Hooker on ‘Paul’.

Gnosticism and Christianity in Roman and Coptic Egypt. By Birger A. Pearson. Pp. xvi + 302. (Studies in Antiquity and Christianity.) New York and London: T. & T. Clark International (a Continuum imprint), 2004. isbn 0 567 02610 8. Paper £20

This is the second collection of Professor Pearson's articles to appear in this series, which emanates from the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity of the Claremont Graduate School (cf. Gnosticism, Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity, 1990). Nine previously published but revised papers are preceded by a new review of research on the origins of Egyptian Christianity and a useful listing of the sources, orthodox and gnostic, which are attributable to second and third-century Egypt. Two of the revised papers are devoted to the Enoch literature and its influence in Coptic Christianity; the others concern the figure of Seth in Manichaeism, Gnostic iconography, Gnostic ritual and Iamblichus’ defence of theurgy, a Coptic homily attributed to Peter of Alexandria, the topography of Jewish and Christian Alexandria, varieties of Alexandrian Jewish Christianity, and the validity (defended by Pearson) of ‘Gnosticism’ as a term for a religious tradition.

Suomi saksalaisin silmin. Lehdistön ja diplomatian näkökulmia by Risto s> Peltovuori (review)

360 SEER, 84, 2, 2oo6 Veesenmayer's persecution of theJews was always cloaked in contingencies, Matic'nevertheless does not leave the impression that it was less lethal or racist than that of dyed-in-the-woolideologues. When Regent Horthy asked Veesenmayer to exempt Christian Jews, professionals, or workers in the armament industry,Veesenmayer insisted on a consequent execution of the deportations.Furthermore,Maticd conclusivelyproves that Veesenmayerknew fromJuly I944 what awaited theseJews in Auschwitz. Still, he continued the deportations. The development of Veesenmayer'santi-Semitismover time is strikingand is not fully explained by the presence of a regime that rewardsanti-Semitic initiative and Matic"sreference to the career ambitions of the 'generation of objectivity'.One cannot help but wonder where this objectivityhad gone when all SerbianJews were declared Communist insurgents.And where was 'rationality'in the conviction that the deportation and murder of Slovakia's and Hungary'sJews could secure German victory as late as I944?Matic has shown that contingenciesneed not be divorcedfrom ideology, but in orderto make more sense of Veesenmayer's development, the course of the war and the natureof his anti-Semitismneed to be takeninto account. Germanvictory and the fate of Europe'sJews had become irretrievablylinked, and it seems that the brutalityof the war in the East and more so the looming apocalypse of military defeat unhooked any form of rationality from the decision to eliminate theJewish population. Yet, Matic does not write a historyof the Holocaust, but tells the story of Veesenmayer'slife. And he does it very well. Veesenmayer'svita is embedded in a concise political historythat introducesthe reader not only to the objectives of German foreignpolicy, but also to the personalitiesand local politics thatVeesenmayerencounteredat each turnof his career.Matic is thusable to consider the specific in the general, individualresponsibilitywithin structural determinants,and manages at the same time to recount an engaging storyin the very traditional(and modestly exciting)field of diplomatichistory. Histoy Department ULRIKE EHRET IKing's College London Peltovuori, Risto. Suomisaksalaisin silmin.Lehdistdn ja diplomatian ndkdkulmia. Historiallisia tutkimuksia, 223. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, Helsinki, 2005. 300 pp. Notes. Illustrations.Bibliographicalreferences. Index. ?29.00 (paperback). THISbook is a study of German views on Finland whether from the press or diplomatic representativesin the vital six years before the outbreak of the Winter War. Having once written a thesis about British views on Finland before the First World War, the reviewer is all too aware of the difficulties arisingfrom the art of combining the official and unofficialin studies of this kind. It might be thought that the monolithic Nazi Germany would not present so great a problem of interweaving the two dimensions. But it is preciselyhere that Risto Peltovuori'swork shows its worth, for with regardto REVIEWS 36I Northern Europe, Nazi Germany was less monolithic than might at first be thought. Peltovuori thus distinguishes between traditional German conservative opinion and the Nazi ideological standpoint. In drawing this distinction, a factor of undeniableimportanceis that the Nordic stateswere not an integral part in Hitler's pre-war plans of conquest and hence the Nazi system could grant itself a degree of latitude when looking northwards.Anyway, most of Scandinavia was Nordically Aryan. But most of Finland was not. It was the same sort of problem that the Volksdeutscher Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi theoretician of race, was acquainted with vis-'a-vishis native Estonia. As far as the Finnswere concerned, Rosenberg pinched a way out from his contemporary Hans Gunther (not mentioned by Peltovuori, but discussed in Britta Hiedanniemi's parallel work),who had spoken of a nordischer Gedanke, which Rosenberg used to describe a politico-culturalidentity covering all the Finns. This glossed over a lot, including alleged Mongol origins, which Gunther himself had not ignored. In practice,too, traditionalGerman conservatismproved a usefullinkwith a section of the Finnishelite. 'Old man' P. E. Svinhufvud,presidentof Finland till I937, could be nicely compared with Hindenburg, whom he resembled. And the fact was that the Nazi regime itself employed a lot of conservatives. From 1935 onwards,the German ministerin Finlandwas Wipertvon Blucher, no Nazi. He and Rosenberg could neverthelessbe in full agreementabout the sterlingworth of the Finnsas enemies of Bolshevism.That had been proved in I9I8 when the German and Finns were Waffenbnider...

Playing a Jewish Game: Gentile Christian Judaizing in the First and Second Centuries CE (review)

Playing a Jewish Game: Gentile Christian Judaizing in the First and Second Centuries CE, by Michele Murray. Studies in Christianity and Judaism/Etudes sur le christianisme et le judaisme 13. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2004. 240 pp. $44.95. The present study represents a revised version of Michele Murray's doctoral dissertation completed at the University of Toronto. The book is a contribution to the ongoing field of research that no longer treats early Christianity as a movement distinct from Judaism. Rather, as Murray emphasizes, recent scholarship has highlighted the ongoing interaction between Judaism and Christianity in the first two centuries CE (p. 1). Much of the impetus for this rethinking of Jewish-Christian relations in antiquity emerges from contemporary post-Holocaust Jewish-Christian dialogue, both in a scholarly and non-scholarly environment. Murray treats one of the most contentious issues in Jewish-Christian relations both in antiquity and up to the modern period-the abundance of anti-Jewish rhetoric (Murray's terminology) in the New Testament and early Christian literature. Previous scholarship has understood this phenomenon as a by-product of the parting of the ways between Judaism and Christianity. Namely, as Christianity pulled further away from it felt compelled to distance itself theologically and ideologically from Judaism. Likewise, as Jewish Christians continued to advocate observance of Jewish law, Christian leaders needed to further dissociate nascent Christianity from Judaism. Murray's study argues for nothing less than a paradigm shift in the understanding of this phenomenon. She re-contextualizes a large amount of this anti-Jewish rhetoric, arguing that it should not be understood as directed toward Jews (or even Jewish Christians), but rather against Gentile Christian judaizers. This term refers to Gentile Christians who adhered to some Jewish practices while maintaining a commitment to Christianity (p. 2). Murray argues that Gentile Christians' practicing Jewish customs and rites was especially disturbing to early Christian leaders. In particular, they found these Gentiles playing a Jewish game to be dangerously blurring the boundaries between Christianity and Judaism, and therefore attempted to suppress it (p. 2). Thus, the intense anti-Jewish rhetoric found in the New Testament and early Christian literature merely represents the efforts of Christian leaders to discourage Gentile Christians from observing Jewish law and to condemn those Gentile Christians actively promoting this lifestyle among fellow Gentile Christians. In unpacking this thesis, Murray explores three different but closely related issues. First, she identifies the historical reality of Gentile Christians adhering to various aspects of Jewish law. Second, she seeks to demonstrate that the motivation for this behavior came from fellow Gentile Christians, not from Jewish Christians. Finally, she attempts to frame the anti-Jewish rhetoric throughout the New Testament and early Christian literature as a direct response to this behavior on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities. In order to fulfill this task, Murray marshals evidence of anti-Jewish rhetoric that comes from texts presumably addressed to a Gentile Christian audience, attempting to reconstruct their socio-historical context. She isolates three distinct geographic areas for this sort of investigation: Galatia (based solely on Paul's letter to the Galations), Syria (based on the Epistle of Barnabas, the Didache, and the Pseudo-Clementine literature), and Asia Minor (based on Revelation, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Marcion, and Melito). …

Didache and Judaism: Jewish Roots of an Ancient Christian-Jewish Work (review)

Reviewed by: Didache and Judaism: Jewish Roots of an Ancient Christian-Jewish Work J. Albert Harrill Marcello Del Verme Didache and Judaism: Jewish Roots of an Ancient Christian-Jewish Work New York and London: T & T Clark International, 2004 Pp. xv + 291. $100.00 (cloth), $29.95 (paper). This study calls for a reexamination of Christian origins in the context of specific Jewish movements that informed the composition of the Didache. Publishing for the first time in English, under the patronage of James Charlesworth (who provides the preface), Del Verme belongs to the "Italian School" (27, 114–15) advocating a hypothetical historical entity called "Enochic Judaism" within so-called Middle Judaism, which Gabriele Boccaccini has proposed to mixed reviews.1 This new reading hopes to "redeem the interpretation of the Didache" from errors claiming both literary dependency on the canonical Gospels ("an unjust New Testament mortgage") and the so-called separation of Christianity from Judaism before the time of the Didache, the final form of which the author dates to the second half of the first century (3–5). The first part (introduction and chapter 1), constituting nearly half of the book, explains the status quaestionis with an annotated bibliography that highlights the methodological "turning point" of the Italian School. This part is intended to serve as a vade mecum for future scholars. The second part (chapters 2–5) examines four specific passages of the Didache and identifies the community institutions, rituals, practices, and doctrines that underlay them as those of Enochic Judaism ("Enochic Essenism," distinct from "Qumram Essenism"). In chapter 2 the community of goods in Did. 4.8 is said to be not merely a redacted NT literary motif but a social description of an actual "economic and charity situation of the community very similar to that found among Essene groups which––in contrast to the Qumranites––lived scattered in the country, that is, in villages and cities of the Roman province of Judaea as reported by Josephus" (122, 135). "In fact, [End Page 117] religious and social structures and institutions were and remained fundamentally the same among numerous groups/movements of the Hellenistic Graeco-Roman period, and, consequently, behavioural 'models' (i.e., 'the ways') of the various Judaisms of the time could coincide" (136). Chapter 3 takes Didache 8 and argues similarly that the people called "hypocrites" for their tithes and fasts were Christian Jewish factions from a lost Jewish group (not Pharisaic) "belonging to Enochian Essenism (whether Qumranic or not), i.e., the so-called Enochians/Apocalyptics" (178). Thus, the text antedates Matthew (186–88). In chapter 4 we learn that the reference to sacerdotal offerings ("first fruits") in Did. 13.3–7 constitutes "evidence for the functioning of certain Jewish institutions" still in force after the destruction of the Temple in the Syro-Palestinian milieu, probably around Antioch (220). And, finally, chapter 5 explains that Didache 16 and 1–6 (the "Two Ways") connect because we find such association in the dualism of Enochic apocalyptic traditions (261–62). Rather than articulating an original thesis, Didache and Judaism rehearses a point of view with both the advantages and the shortcomings of this mode of scholarship. The book's theological-political tone does not attempt to hide its confessional agenda for modern Jewish–Christian relations (after the Shoah) and for world peace. All noble aims, of course, but my interest lies in the argument, which in the end falls short of persuasive power because of its circular reasoning, i.e., using the (hypothetical historical entity of) Enochic Judaism as "evidence" for arguing that the social movement of the Didache was "Enochian," and then using the Didache as evidence for arguing that Enochic Judaism was an established movement (e.g., 115 and 191 n. 5). Readers seeing serious problems with Boccaccini's reconstruction of Essene origins will most likely experience similar doubts about Del Verme's reconstruction of the Didache because all the findings derive their reasoning a priori from this totalizing hypothesis. It is at best an oversimplification, the evidence for which is entirely circumstantial. J. Albert Harrill Indiana University Footnotes 1. Gabriele Boccaccini, Middle Judaism: Jewish Thought, 300 B.C.E. to 200 C.E. (Minneapolis...

The Apostolic Fathers: The Didache

The Didache is perhaps the earliest test in the collection of writings known as the Apostolic Fathers. It purports to be a collection of instructions given by Jesus, through the twelve apostles, to provide catechesis for new Gentile converts prior to|baptism. The text is particularly important in providing insight into the life of an early Jewish Christian community, including its baptismal and Eucharistic liturgy, as well as offering evidence for the evolution of leadership structures in at least one early Christian community.

Differenze teologiche tra la Vetus Syra e il Diatessaron

It is usually held that the Old Syriac Gospels depend upon the Diatessaron. In the present study the theological tendencies of the two versions are examined. Tatian stressed the virginity of Mary, introduced some Encratite variants, offered a Christology similar to Gnostic conceptions and was anti-Judaic. The translators of the Old Syriac Gospels stressed the relationship between Joseph and Jesus, introduced an important anti-Encratite variant, did not present any similarity with Gnostic ideas and were Jewish Christians. The conclusion is that the two versions were produced in two different communities and are independent of each other.

The Demise of Marxism-Leninism in Russia by Archie s> Brown (review)

REVIEWS 177 me to Jesus. They wished instead to bring their Christian religious identities togetherwith theirownJewishnessthroughtheJewishnessofJesus' Christianity ' (p. I27). 'Inmany ways, theywere not interestedin bringingJews toJesus, but in bringing the true Jesus back to the Jews from whence he originally came'(p. 128). These are fairly heterogeneous responses. We need to remember that we are dealing with relativelyvery small numbersof people, and that generalizations are intrinsically harder than with larger numbers. Most Jews in the Soviet Union remained secular and indifferentto spirituality.Moreover, by the I98os, in contrastto the previoustwo decades, conversiontoJudaism had become a real option in the USSR (albeit not an easy one). It would be interestingto place Kornblatt'sstudyalongside an analysisof the comparable experience of Soviet and RussianJews who discoveredand adoptedJudaism (includingsome relativelywell-knowndissidentssuch as JosifBegun). Kornblatt'sis a valuable analysis,but perhapsraisesas many questionsas it answers. The potential role of Russian Jewish Christians is evidently enormous: 'Their special status as doubly heirs to God's chosen people bestows upon them a new mission, a positive and internal role to play within the Church: that of healer' (p. I39). This is an exciting and challenging prospect at a time when ecumenism and interfaith dialogue are becoming ever more problematic. At the same time, the position of these Jewish Christiansremains ambiguous, the product of 'discontinuityand disruption'; the fulfillingofJews asJews through Christianity'a Soviet, but also, oddly, a very Jewish irony' (p. I6). As the title of Kornblatt's book reminds us, the whole subjectis in importantways 'not aboutJews, nor about Christians,but about the post-Stalin Soviet Union and the Soviet intelligentsia'(p. 80), and one more example from the still under-researched gamut of specific and peculiar products of the interplay between institutional Marxism-Leninism and religion. Keston Institute PHILIP WALTERS Oxford Brown, Archie (ed.). TheDemiseof Marxism-Leninism in Russia.St Antony's Series. Palgrave,Basingstokeand New York,2004. xvi + 233 pp. Glossary .Notes. Index. 1i7.99 (paperback). THE DEMISEOF MARXISM-LENINISM is effectively the second edition of New Thinking in SovietPolitics,also edited by Archie Brown, and published by Macmillan in I992 from conference papers that were originallypresented at the I990 Harrogate ICCEES congress. Some of the chapters from the first edition are published in the new volume without any substantive revision because their authors have unfortunately passed away since the original publication. Others have been rewritten substantially, and one is a new addition to the volume. This mixture of the old, revised and the new makes for a strange volume. Inevitably there is some unevenness between chapters as some fill out the historical record more than others can. There is also a question about how well the essays both old and new addressthe title of the I78 SEER, 84, I, 2006 volume. Analysing the demise of Marxism-Leninismis a more complex task than recording new thinking in some policy area or other. This is not to say that the chapters are not good, but that the usefulnessof the volume is to be found in the individualchapters,which are well-written,clear and sometimes very comprehensivesurveysof changes in thinking. The chapters that are least changed from the original volume because of the death of their authorsare Alec Nove's chapter on new thinkingabout the Soviet economy, and two chapters by Alexander Dallin on new thinking in Soviet foreignpolicy and on the development of thinkingon world Communism . Dallin's chapters have stood the test of time better than Nove's. Nove's chapter is greatfun to read, writtenwith brio and full of anecdotes. However, its coverage ends in the summer of I990; it does not cover even some of the major developments in economic thinking that came at the end of the perestroika period such as the Shatalin plan, let alone the major shifts in economic thinking that came with shock therapy and the debates that surroundedit. Dallin's chaptersbenefit from the fact that the shift in foreign policy thinking under Gorbachev was more or less complete by the time he wrote his chapter, and the abandonment of the grosser aims of propagating world Communism by the USSR was one of the more clear examples of basic Marxist-Leninistprinciplesbeing sidelined. Substantiallyrevised chapters are provided by Brown his...

Edward Kessler. Bound by the Bible: Jews, Christians and the Sacrifice of Isaac. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. xii, 222 pp.

Kessler's erudite book aims to prove not only that exegetical encounters occurred between the ancient rabbis and the early church fathers in both directions, but also that “to understand properly Jewish or Christian exegesis in late antiquity it is essential to understand each other's interpretations and the influence of one upon the other” (182). He begins by reviewing the shortcomings of previous approaches to Jewish–Christian interaction in late antiquity. Kessler then puts forward what he terms the exegetical approach, suggests some controls on this method, and proceeds to test his hypothesis by conducting a verse-by-verse examination of Genesis 22. In each chapter, he first surveys a few major early interpreters, such as Philo and Josephus, and then compares Rabbinic and early Christian interpretations on Genesis 22 in some detail. There is also a final chapter that examines ancient artistic renderings of Abraham's near sacrifice of Isaac.

Elisheva Carlebach. Divided Souls: Converts from Judaism in Germany, 1500–1750. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. xii, 324 pp.

Unlike the Sephardim, who accepted the concept of taqiyya and the practice of marranism to cope with forced conversions under Islam, the Ashkenazim, especially the Jewish communities of Germanophone Central Europe, developed an uncompromising rejection of Christian baptism. Instead of marranism and deception under Islam, the Ashkenazim, in the persecutions of the Crusades and after, developed a strong sense of martyrdom and detested baptism, whether forced or voluntary, as ritual and spiritual defilement and pollution. The small number of Jewish converts to Christianity were not so much sinners but apostates (meshummadim or the vertilgten). Given this Ashkenazi tradition, it is not surprising that converts were marginalized in Jewish historiography and scholarship. Nevertheless, as Carlebach argues persuasively in this book, they played a significant role in Jewish–Christian relations in early modern Germany; and given the fact that conversions rose rapidly in the late eighteenth century, it is all the more important to understand the prehistory of Jewish conversion and integration in Germany after Emancipation.

The Origins of the Seder and Haggadah

Emerging methods in the study of rabbinic literature now enable greater precision in dating the individual components of the Passover seder and haggadah. These approaches, both textual and socio-historical, have led to a near consensus among scholars that the Passover seder as described in rabbinic literature did not yet exist during the Second Temple period. Hence, cautious scholars no longer seek to find direct parallels between the last supper as described in the Gospels and the rabbinic seder. Rather, scholarly attention has focused on varying attempts of Jewish parties, notably rabbis and Christians, to provide religious meaning and sanctity to the Passover celebration after the death of Jesus and the destruction of the Temple. Three main forces stimulated the rabbis to develop innovative seder ritual and to generate new, relevant exegeses to the biblical Passover texts: (1) the twin calamities of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the Bar-Kokhba revolt; (2) competition with emerging Christian groups; (3) assimilation of Greco-Roman customs and manners. These forces were, of course, significant contributors to the rise of a much larger array of rabbinic institutions, ideas and texts. Thus surveying scholarship on the seder reviews scholarship on the emergence of rabbinic Judaism.

Peter's Vision and Conflicting Definitions of Purity

Luke depicts the problem of incorporating Gentiles into the Church as rooted in conflicting definitions of purity. Apart from the principal Torah distinction between clean and unclean animals, a third category is mentioned: ‘common’, referring to doubtfully pure food. Parallels to this usage are found in a range of Jewish literature, from the Hasmonaean to the Rabbinic period. The notion of doubtfully pure food can help explain Peter's refusal to slaughter and eat from the mixed group of animals in his vision. Categorizing people like Cornelius as ‘potentially defiled’ may have constituted a human ‘fence’ between scrupulous Jews and unclean pagans. Adherence to the stipulations of the apostolic decree by Gentile Christians removed the last hindrance to Jewish Christians having table fellowship with them.

The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (review)

Reviewed by: The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages Judith Lieu The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, edited by Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed. TSAJ 95. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003. 410 pp. €70.00. During the second half of the twentieth century the "Parting of the Ways" became a dominant model for understanding the origins and continuing relations between "Judaism" and "Christianity." The virtues of the model were that it replaced a supersessionist triumphalism that saw Christianity as defeating a moribund "Judaism" whose continuing existence could only be anomalous, and [End Page 189] that it paid due attention to the diversity of Jewish thought and practice of the first century CE, out of which both subsequent traditions emerged. More recently a growing number of voices have exposed the weaknesses of the model: it invites attempts to locate the time and place of "the parting," it assumes that "Judaism" and "Christianity" are and were bounded entities whose separate stories could be told, and it provides little room for the well-attested continuing contacts between "Jews" and "Christians" except as aberrations. The title of The Ways that Never Parted speaks for itself—apparently a frontal attack on the whole concept implicit in the model—although the subtitle, by retaining the labels "Jews" and "Christians" (without quotation marks), somewhat qualifies its iconoclasm. Together the essays retain this ambivalence; they are the outcome of a conference and other collaborative work between Oxford and Princeton Universities, from which institutions some, but not all, of the contributors come, a welcome mix of research students and leading scholars in the field. Given this background, the book represents a series of forays into the territory, not a systematic survey. For some the focus of attention is the categories used by the scholars: Martin Goodman uses diagrams to plot a range of models from participants in antiquity and contemporary debate, Robert Kraft brings a light touch to reflecting on our search for and relative discomfort with labels, and Daniel Boyarin invokes a range of theoretical critiques of the nature of classification with reference to "Judaism" and "Christianity" (with quotation marks); Andrew Jacobs reflects on scholarship but also on late antique texts from the Holy Land through the lens of post-colonial theory, while Paula Fredriksen takes a long view whose real interest is the realia of Jewish and Christian life in the context of the "pagan" and then "Christian" city. Another avenue of approach is the exploration of the diverse phenomena usually labelled "Jewish Christianity," whether identified in texts which seem to maintain a "Jewish" self-understanding or allegiance in practice, such as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs or the Pseudo-Clementines (David Frankfurter; Annette Yoshiko Reed), or in references to "Christians" who continued to actively participate in aspects of Jewish life, such as "the Jews" of the Martyrdom of Polycarp according to E. Leigh Gibson. By definition these undermine the neat antithetical definition of Judaism and Christianity, except, of course, as early Christian writers would have it, as illegitimate hybrids; the counter argument must be that to the dispassionate scholarly observer these are simply what they are, without embarrassment, and that their continuing vitality (traced by John Gager to the rise of Islam) refutes views of them as short-lived or immature. Another set of questions is provided by practices or exegetical traditions and techniques held in common: this might be due to conscious borrowing, as [End Page 190] in Alison Salvesen's analysis of the influence of the Hebrew scriptural text on Origen and Jerome, or reflect a shared cultural context and set of constraints, albeit differently tackled (Amram Tropper on succession lists), or result from a twin process of adoption and rejection as suggested by Daniel Stökl ben Ezra's study of the development of the Christian fast in September; a close analysis of rabbinic and Christian readings of shared texts or traditions, such as of Moses' celibacy (Naomi Koltin-Fromm), or Ra'anan Abusch's study of traditions of R. Ishmael's miraculous conception and martyrdom suggest that polemic, competition, and...

Gospel as News: ευαγγελ- from Aristophanes to the Apostle Paul

Against the contentions of a number of NT scholars, the present article aims to demonstrate that the apostle Paul's gospel language never refers to ongoing Christian instruction and only ever connotes announcements which are news to those who hear them. This conclusion, which is maintained even in connection with Rom 1.15, a key text for the ‘broad-ranging’ view of ευαγγελ-, is shown to conform to the wholly consistent usage of gospel terminology throughout Graeco-Roman, Jewish and early Christian literature: ‘gospel’ is news.

The Jewish–Christian Schism RevisitedYoderJohn HowardCartwrightMichael G.OchsPeter The Jewish–Christian Schism Revisited SCMLondon, 2003, viii, 290, $20.400-334-02904-X

The Jewish–Christian Schism RevisitedYoderJohn HowardCartwrightMichael G.OchsPeter <i>The Jewish–Christian Schism Revisited</i> SCMLondon, 2003, viii, 290, $20.400-334-02904-X

Deicide Deja Vu: Mel Gibson's Film, The Passion--An Attack on 40 Years of Jewish-Christian Dialogue

It is now four decades after Nostra Aerate and a few years after both A Sacred Obligation: Rethinking Christian Faith in Relation to Judaism and the Jewish People and Dabru Emet: A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity. In addition, the Scholar's Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches has for than 30 years now been a positive force for Jewish Christian dialogues in both North America and Europe. results of these documents and dialogues have been far reaching, even in to the parish and local church level. In a modest way they have had an impact on the liturgy of some churches. There has even been a shift in the rhetoric of some in the Christian fundamentalist community regarding Jews, Judaism, Israel and the Shoah. Would all of this progress in Christian Jewish dialogue be wiped away with one video representation of the death of Jesus? Would the film resurrect the ancient accusation of deicide against the Jews? Would it be the precursor of a new era of Christian religious anti-Judaism akin to that already existing in the Moslem world? These are critical questions that must be addressed in any discussion of Mel Gibson's Passion. To paraphrase Paul Newman's famous line from Cool Hand Luke, What we have here is a failure of interpretation! Mel Gibson's is a film based on a personal interpretation of the Gospel story of the last hours of Jesus. That specific interpretation is part idiosyncratic to Mel Gibson and to the brand of Catholicism he and his father and others express that denies the changes in Catholic theology and liturgy generated out of Vatican I and II. That interpretation is also colored by the very anti-Jewish novel of the erstwhile nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich, who wrote Dolorous of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the early 1800's. (In what must be the height of bad taste, bad timing, and obvious pandering to the right wing of the Catholic Church, the Church leadership has begun the process of beatifying Emroerich as the first step towards sainthood.) Gibson has said in numerous interviews that he is simply being faithful to the Gospels themselves. This is hardly true. Any rendition of the Gospel story which condenses all four works into one cannot by definition be true to the Gospel story. But Gibson also adds many images to the story not contained in the Gospels. Executive Director of Boston Colleges Center for Christian Jewish Learning, Phillip Cunningham's brilliant analysis of the film, Gibson's of the Christ: A Challenge to Catholic Teaching, gives evidence of this in a most graphic way. Cunningham points out the numerous non-biblical references contained in the film, primarily drawn from the demented ravings of Emmerich. Gibson's artistic license, in part drawn from Emmerich, raises the level of anti-Jewish images well beyond those in the Gospels themselves and gives rise to the accusation of antisemitism, which Gibson denies. However, it is not the intent of this paper to recount those anti-Jewish aspects of the film, but rather this paper will focus on the impact of the film on Christian-Jewish dialogue. In a survey done of viewers of the film, pollster Gary Tobin reported that the film did not have the negative impact Jewish groups predicted. As reported in the JTA on March 17(th) 2004, ...a random national survey of 1,003 adults conducted by Tobin's group March 5-9, nearly two weeks after the movies premiere, 12 percent of the 146 people who had seen The Passion said it made them less likely to blame Jews today for the crucifixion, compared to 5 percent who said they were more likely to blame all Jews for killing Jesus. Was Gibson correct that the film was not antisemitic? Were Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant groups crying wolf? doomsday predictions of immediate increased anti-Jewish attitudes and antisemitic violence never happened. Gibson was not correct; religious groups were not crying wolf. …

The Jewish Jesus: A Partisan's Imagination

My own approach to finding the historical Jesus in the text of the New Testament may appear to some as extreme. It seems to me that Mark, the earliest gospel version on the life of Jesus compiled shortly after the destruction of the Second Jewish by the Romans in 70 C.E., contains authentic traces of the historical Jesus shrouded in repeated motifs of secrecy which are intended to obscure the role of Jesus as a political revolutionary sympathizer involved in the Jewish national struggle against Rome. When the Gospel of Mark is analyzed in its own light, without recourse to the special status which canonical tradition confers, it is less history and biography and more historiosophy and parable. It also features an astute polemic against the Jewish Christian believers in Jerusalem, whose influence diminished considerably following the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., and a clever apology to make early Christianity palatable to Rome by not identifying Jesus with the national aspirations of the Jews. The Markan account on the trial of Jesus and his execution, along with the portrait of a pacifistic Christ, are for the most part historically questioned by S. G. F. Brandon, who sees in these narratives attempts by the Gentile Church to win Roman favor by exculpating Pontius Pilate from his share in the crucifixion of Jesus.(64) I agree. Regarding the Synoptic Gospels' (Mathew, Mark, Luke) account of Jesus before the Sanhedrin,(65) the trial before Pilate,(66) and the sentence of death,(67) the question of historical fairness intrudes into these accounts. Jesus is tried three times (the Sanhedrin night-trial which found him guilty of blasphemy, the trial before Herod Antipas, and the dawn-trial before Pilate), and so which court decisively condemned Jesus?(68) Where in the biblical-talmudic tradition is blasphemy defined by claiming that one is the the Son of the Blessed?(69) Lev 24:13-23 and Sanhedrin 7.5 proclaim that whoever curses God is guilty of blasphemy.(70) Rarely recorded are malediction and impious profanity by one who claims to be a messianic figure. True, Josephus reported many messianic pretenders between 6 and 70 C.E., but we have no record of any put to death. Bar-Kochba was called Messiah by Akiba, but tradition does not speak ill of either second-century hero. And no less a personality than Maimonides relegated the messianic doctrine to a secondary position among the articles of faith rendered in his name. Also, one guilty of blasphemy was stoned to death and not killed by crucifixion as recorded by Mark.(71) That Jesus was sympathetic to the Zealot cause may explain why the charges of sedition were not overtly denied by Jesus when asked, Are you the King of the Jews?(72) Other references support this view. One of the trusted disciples was Simon the Zealot.(73) The Zealot Movement, rooted in the tradition of being zealous for the Lord,(74) arose in the Galilee in the first decade of the first century. It may be assumed that the child Jesus raised in Nazareth would have listened often to tales of Zealot exploits against the hated Romans and how many of the former died martyrs' deaths in a futile attempt to replace the bondage of Rome with the yoke of the kingdom of heaven.(75) These childhood experiences listened to in earnest and awe caused the adult Jesus to sympathize with the anti-Roman feelings of his people. Thus, the cleansing of the Temple pericope is not to be read as anti-Temple but rather as a critique of the functionaries who collaborated with Rome.(76) This episode appears to have coincided with an insurrection in Jerusalem during the period of Gaius Caligula (34-41), in which the Zealots appear to have been involved.(77) The famous question concerning tribute to Caesar has Jesus saying, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's,(78) thereby implying Jewish support of Roman fiscal and political policy. This is an assimilable position and it is very doubtful that the historical Jesus identified with it. …