Hellenism and Antisemitism in the New Testament

The 14 papers included in this collective volume discuss many aspects of Aegean and Greek influence on Palestine, ancient Israel and Judaism, from the second millennium BCE to the third and second centuries BCE. Two papers, by E. Nodet and R.E. Gmirkin, sketch a complete scenario for the (assumed) formation of the Hebrew Bible in third- and second-century BCE Alexandria in Egypt. The reviewer offers abstracts of all contributions, comments on research needs, and adds bibliography. – Bernhard Lang, review of: The Bible and Hellenism, ed. Thomas L. Thompson & Philippe Wajdenbaum, Durham 2014, in: Semitica et Classica 8 (2015) 275–279.

2014

This volume introduces ancient Israel's Scriptures, or the Hebrew Bible, commonly called the Old Testament. It also traces the legacy of monotheism first found in the pages of the Old Testament. Where pertinent to the message of the Old Testament, the book explores issues of history, comparative religions, and sociology, while striking a balance among these topics by focusing primarily on literary features of the text. In addition, frequent sidebar discussions introduce the reader to contemporary scholarship, especially the results of historical-critical research and archaeology. Along the way, the book explores how the Old Testament conceptualized and gave rise to monotheism, one of the most significant developments in history. • Pays unique attention to the origins of monotheism, the common heritage of Jews, Christians, and Muslims • Includes generous number of illustrations, 20 freshly created maps, and frequent sidebar discussions in each chapter, as well as concise chapter summaries and glossary of terms • Has a web component that includes study guides, flashcards, PowerPoint lecture slides and a test bank Pays unique attention to the origins of monotheism, the common heritage of Jews, Christians and Muslims Includes a generous number of illustrations, twenty freshly created maps, and frequent sidebar discussions in each chapter, as well as concise chapter summaries and glossary of terms Has a web component that includes study guides, flashcards, PowerPoint lecture slides and a test bank

Church History, 2008

This collection embodies paradox. While wrestling with the troubling methodological questions that provoked its editor to organize the Society of Biblical Literature's Jewish Christianity Consultation in 2005, its introduction and first chapter leave no doubt about Jackson-McCabe's inclination to deconstruct the Consultation's namesake category, ultimately rendering the term Jewish Christianity too ambiguous and potentially damaging to be useful. By design, Jackson-McCabe's contributors apply their specific expertise to various test cases, divided into two sections, with

2020

The following essay reviews and proposes new avenues in the historical analysis of early Judaism and its impact on identity-building processes in the southern Levant. Its crucial interest lies in demonstrating that the ideas responsible for the emergence of Judaism were developed in a context of Yahwistic diversity. The underlying perspective of this essay concerns the observation that a broad variety of different Yahwistic groups existed inside and outside Judah during the sixth to first century BCE. As recent scholarship has increasingly recognized, this period had a major impact on the theological and literary histories of early Judaism. This epoch also witnessed the shaping of other central identity markers, such as the institution of the central temple and the Torah. This leads to the main thesis of the essay: Contrary to the current majority view, the formation process of early Judaism takes place less as an inner-Judean development than as the complex and multilayered process of negotiation between diverse groups. The essay provides a critical discussion of the current paradigm of the emergence of Early Judaism (section 1), and a detailed, critical review of the recent critical objections against this theory from the perspective of exilic and postexilic diversity (section 2). Additionally, the essay presents the author’s cornerstones that result from this very debate and provides a perspective for future research in this matter that attempts a comprehensive description of the a) religious, b) sociological, and c) literary history of the phenomenon of diversification within ancient Yahwism (sections 3–5). The essay will conclude with an overview of the studies in this volume (section 6). This program results in the following detailed structure for the essay: 1. Judean Perspectives on Israel’s History: State of the Field 2. Towards a Paradigm Shift: Four Critical Objections from Recent Religious-Historical, Historical, and Exegetical Research 2.1 Plurality Rather Than a Monoculture 2.2 Contact and Interaction Rather Than Exclusivity 2.3 Judean Perspectives in the Hebrew Bible: The Concepts of Exilic Discontinuity, Golah-Judean Continuity, and Exclusivity 2.4 Samarian Involvement prior to the Exilic and Persian Period: Bringing “the First Exile” (722 BCE) into Discussion 3. “Binnen-israelitische Ausdifferenzierungsprozesse”: A Matrix for Future Research 3.1 The Nexus of Yahwistic Diversity and Formational Processes of Early Judaism 3.2 A Question of Terminology: Judaism(s) – Yahwism(s) – “Israel” 4. The Hebrew Bible as a Reflection of Exilic and Postexilic Yahwistic Diversity 4.1 Pentateuch, Hexateuch, and Deuteronomistic History: Traces of Judean-Samarian Relations 4.2 The Pentateuch as an Inclusive Foundational Document of Israel for Different Yahwistic Groups: A Modification of the Theory of the Common Pentateuch/Torah 4.3 Different Ideas of “Israel” within the Hebrew Bible 4.4 Textual Traditions and Yahwistic Variety 5. Conclusion and Perspectives for Future Research 6. Overview of This Volume

Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism JSJS, 2022

Contents Introduction Acknowledgments I. Moses and Exodus 1. Alexandria in Pharaonic Egypt: Projections in De vita Mosis 2. Moses and the Charlatans: On the Charge of γόης καὶ ἀπατεών in Contra Apionem 2.145, 161 3. Moses: Motherless with Two Mothers 4. Leaving Home: Philo of Alexandria on the Exodus II. Places and Ruins 5. Geography without Territory: Tacitus’s Digression on the Jews and its Ethnographic Context 6. Show and Tell: Myth, Tourism, and Jewish Hellenism 7. What if the Temple of Jerusalem Had not Been Destroyed by the Romans? III. Theatre and Myth 8. Philo’s Struggle with Jewish Myth 9. Part of the Scene: Jewish Theatre in Antiquity 10. Take Your Time: Conversion, Confidence and Tranquility in Joseph and Aseneth IV. Antisemitism and Reception 11. Antisemitism and Early Scholarship on Ancient Antisemitism 12. A Leap into the Void: The Philo-Lexikon and Jewish-German Hellenism 13. Tacitus’s Excursus on the Jews over the Centuries: An Overview of the History of its Reception 14. Polytheism and Monotheism in Antiquity: On Jan Assmann’s Critique of Monotheism 15. Testa incognita: The History of the Pseudo-Josephus Bust in Copenhagen Index of cited passages Index of names Index of subjects

Orientalia, 2021

Themelios , 2019

It is often said that “History is in the eye of beholder.” The reporting of history lends itself to subjectivity, ideological bents, and a narrow focus. In the last seventeen years, the European Seminar has wrestled with issues of historicity in ancient Israel. Their most recent contribution, The Hebrew Bible and History: Critical Readings, continues the Seminar’s work by providing a dialogue on writing a history of ancient Israel. The contributors span the theological spectrum so that their viewpoints provide a dialogue.

The Israelite cult and its connection to the surrounding culture Introduction to the book "A Brief History of Yahweh" The kingdoms of Israel and Judah were not disconnected from the cultures of the surrounding peoples, including in the realm of worship. The biblical texts themselves attest to this reality. It is therefore understandable to observe that the deity is presented in a diverse and sometimes even contradictory manner. This diversity can be explained by the layered composition of the Bible, written at different times by various authors. This present work delves into the representation of Yahweh in the biblical texts and attempts to conduct a thorough analysis of it. It seeks to highlight the variability of the identity of the god "Yahweh" across different texts, examining the political contexts that influenced this evolution. It demonstrates that theology, philosophy, society, and politics are closely intertwined, and that events related to the worship of Yahweh are intimately associated with the composition and writing of the Hebrew Bible. It is not coincidental that this study begins with the exploration of significant events in the monarchy of Judah, particularly during the time of King Josiah, under the supervision of his scribe, Shaphan, the son of Azalia. The starting point for these changes in Judean worship is the discovery, during the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem, of a book that this study identifies as the "Deuteronomy." This research introduces a major modification by assigning crucial importance to the character of Shaphan and his lineage, his connection to the priestly tradition of Shiloh, and his role in formulating the principles of Deuteronomy's reform. The scribes responsible for this text also compiled oral traditions and existing texts of their time, arranging them according to their judgment. This reform had a decisive influence on the final version of the biblical writings, far beyond its initial historical context.

Indiana University Linguistics Club Working Papers, 2014

While attempting to shed light on Jewish discourse during the first century, many scholars have compared the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament, seeking evidence of common ground and critical differences (Fitzmyer 2000, Abegg 2006, Wooder 2006). This paper explores Jewish first-century sectarian dialogue (as revealed in the New Testament and the sectarian Qumran documents) through writers’ uses of light and darkness as a metaphor for good and evil; and of ‘sons of X’ as an expression of spiritual membership. This paper shows that the New Testament writers subvert the rhetoric which was previously used by the Qumran sect (‘light/dark,’ ‘sons of’) in order to mark their own sectarian boundaries. This is done by first establishing that this rhetoric was rooted in the Hebrew Tanakh, with no close parallels in other Ancient Near Eastern cultures; second, by demonstrating that although this rhetoric was rooted in the Old Testament it had acquired additional resonances, including a slogan or code status, by the time it was taken up by the Qumran writers; third, by showing that this rhetoric is indeed shared by the Qumran and New Testament corpora; and fourth, by explaining how various New Testament writers show awareness of and reaction to this rhetoric’s provenance. This paper contributes to the study of Judeo-Christian religion, sectarianism, language and power, and linguistic boundary-marking.