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Judaism and St. Paul: Two Essays (1914) is a book by Claude G. Montefiore.

Abstract

Montefiore was one of the first Jewish scholars to take an interest in New Testament Studies. He rejected the then predominant idea that Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism were characterized by legalism and an absent God.

Classic Rabbinic Judaism was still at its inception in the first century. Besides, there were "other branches of Judaism existing in 50 over and above the purist Rabbinic type." Montefiore did not deny that Paul preached against Jewish legalism. Paul however did not know Rabbinic Judaism, and his thought was shaped by non-Jewish, Hellenistic religious conceptions. His criticism targeted not Rabbinic Judaism but quite rightly, a cold variety of Hellenistic Judaism, which was "influenced by the Apocalyptic school of thinkers or dreamers."

Editions

Published in London [England]: Max Goschen, 1914; and New York, NY: Dutton, 1915. Reissued in New York, NY: Arno, 1973.

Table of contents

• THE GENESIS OF THE RELIGION
• THE RELATION OF ST PAUL
• APPENDIX

External links

• Google Books