The Ways That Never Parted (2003 Becker/Reed), edited volume

The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages (2003) is a book by Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed.

Abstract

"Traditional scholarship on the history of Jewish/Christian relations has been largely based on the assumption that Judaism and Christianity were shaped by a definitive 'Parting of the Ways'. According to this model, the two religions institutionalized their differences by the second century and, thereafter, developed in relative isolation from one another, interacting mainly through polemical conflict and mutual misperception. This volume grows out of a joint Princeton-Oxford project dedicated to exploring the limits of the traditional model and to charting new directions for future research. Drawing on the expertise of scholars of both Jewish Studies and Patristics, it offers an interdisciplinary perspective on the interaction between Jews and Christians between the Bar Kokhba Revolt and the rise of Islam. The contributors question the conventional wisdom concerning the formation of religious identity, the interpenetration of Jewish and Christian traditions, the fate of 'Jewish-Christianity', and the nature of religious polemics in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. By moving beyond traditional assumptions about the essential differences between Judaism and Christianity, this volume thus attempts to open the way for a more nuanced understanding of the history of these two religions and the constantly changing yet always meaningful relationship between them."--Publisher description.

"Die traditionelle Forschung zur Geschichte der jüdisch-christlichen Beziehungen basiert zum größten Teil auf der Annahme, daß Judentum und Christentum von einer klaren 'Trennung der Wege' geformt wurden. Die beiden Religionen hatten - folgt man diesem Modell - ihre Unterschiede bereits im zweiten Jahrhundert institutionalisiert und entwickelten sich von da an in gegenseitiger Isolation weiter, wobei sie nur in Form von polemischem Konflikt und gegenseitiger Fehlwahrnehmung interagierten. Dieser Sammelband ist das Ergebnis eines gemeinschaftlichen Projekts der Universitäten Princeton und Oxford, das sich der Untersuchung der Grenzen dieses traditionellen Modells und der Suche nach neuen Richtungen für die zukünftige Forschung gewidmet hat. Die Zusammenarbeit von Judaisten und Patristikern ermöglicht einen interdisziplinären Blickwinkel auf die Interaktion von Juden und Christen im Zeitraum von der Bar Kokhba Revolte bis zum Aufstieg des Islam."--Publisher description (German).

Editions

Published in Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2003 (Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism, 95). Reissued in Minneapoli, MN: Fortress, 2007.

Contents

Introduction : Traditional models and new directions /; Annete Yoshiko Reed & Adam H. becker --; What "parting of the ways"? Jews, gentiles and the ancient Mediterranean city /; Paula Fredriksen --; Semantic differences; or, "Judaism"/"Christianity" /; Daniel Boyarin --; The weighing of the parts : pivots and pitfalls in the study of early Judaisms and their early Christian offspring /; Robert A. Kraft --; The lion and the lamb : reconsidering Jewish-Christian relations in antiquity /; Andrew S. Jacobs --; Modeling the "parting of the ways" /; Martin Goodman --; Beyond "Jewish Christianity" : continuing religious sub-cultures of the second and third centuries and their documents /; David Frankfurter --; The jews and Christians in the Martyrdom of Polycarp : entangled or parted ways? /; E. Leigh Gibson --; Tractate Avot and early Christian succession lists /; Amram Tropper --; "Jewish Christianity" after the "parting of the ways" : approaches to historiography and self-definition in the Pseudo-Clementines /; Annette Yoshiko Reed --; A convergence of the ways? The Judaizing of Christian scripture by Origen and Jerome /; Alison Salvesen --; Whose fast is it? The Ember Day of September and Yom Kippur /; Daniel Stokl Ben Ezra --; Zippora's complaint : Moses is not conscientious in the deed! Exegetical traditions of Moses' celibacy /; Naomi Koltun-Fromm --; Rabbi Ishmael's miraculous conception : Jewish redemption history in anti-Christian polemic /; Ra`anan S. Abusch --; Jews and heretics - a category error? /; Averil Cameron --; Did Jewish Christians see the rise of Islam? /; John G. Gager --; Beyond the spatial and temporal Limes : questioning the "parting of the ways" outside the Roman Empire /; Adam H. Becker.

External links

• [ Google Books]