An honest, probing look at the New Testament in relation to problems that confront Jews and Christians today. This flexible manual allows instructors to offer standalone lessons or full courses. Includes lesson plans, discussion questions and visual aids.
An honest, probing look at the dynamics of the New Testament—in relation to problems that disconcert Jews and Christians today. Despite the New Testament’s impact on Jewish history, virtually all Jews avoid knowledge of its underlying dynamics. Jewish families and communities thus remain needlessly stymied when responding to a deeply Christian culture. Their Christian friends, meanwhile, are left perplexed as to why Jews are wary of the Gospel’s “good news.” This long-awaited volume offers an unprecedented solution-oriented introduction to Jesus and Paul, the Gospels and Revelation, leading Jews out of anxieties that plague them, and clarifying for Christians why Jews draw back from Christians’ sacred writings. Accessible to laypeople, scholars and clergy of all faiths, innovative teaching aids make this valuable resource ideal for rabbis, ministers and other educators. Topics include: The Gospels, Romans and Revelation— the Key Concerns for Jews Misusing the Talmud in Gospel Study Jesus’ Trial, the “Virgin Birth” and Empty Tomb Enigmas Millennialist Scenarios and Missionary Encroachment The Last Supper and Church Seders Is the New Testament Antisemitic? While written primarily with Jews in mind, this groundbreaking volume will also help Christians understand issues involved in the origin of the New Testament, the portrayal of Judaism in it, and why for centuries their “good news” has been a source of fear and mistrust among Jews.
An honest, probing look at the dynamics of the New Testament - in relation to problems that disconcert Jews and Christians today. Despite the New Testament's impact on Jewish history, virtually all Jews avoid knowledge of its underlying dynamics. Jewish families and communities thus remain needlessly stymied when responding to a deeply Christian culture. Their Christian friends, meanwhile, are left perplexed as to why Jews are wary of the Gospel's ''good news.'' This long - awaited volume offers an unprecedented solution - oriented introduction to Jesus and Paul, the Gospels and Revelation, leading Jews out of anxieties that plague them, and clarifying for Christians why Jews draw back from Christians' sacred writings. Accessible to laypeople, scholars and clergy of all faiths, innovative teaching aids make this valuable resource ideal for rabbis, ministers and other educators. Topics include: The Gospels, Romans and Revelation - the Key Concerns for Jews Misusing the Talmud in Gospel Study Jesus' Trial, the ''Virgin Birth'' and Empty Tomb Enigmas Millennialist Scenarios and Missionary Encroachment The Last Supper and Church Seders Is the New Testament Antisemitic? While written primarily with Jews in mind, this groundbreaking volume will also help Christians understand issues involved in the origin of the New Testament, the portrayal of Judaism in it, and why for centuries their ''good news'' has been a source of fear and mistrust among Jews.
Although Jewish tradition gives tremendous importance to the Hebrew Bible, from the beginning Jewish interpretation of those scriptures has been practiced with remarkable freedom. Karin Hedner Zetterholm offers a clear and concise introduction to the legal, theological, and historical presuppositions that shaped the dominant stream of rabbinic interpretation, including Mishnah, Talmud, and Midrashim, discussing specific examples of different interpretive methods. She then explores the contours of Jewish biblical interpretation evident in the New Testament and the legacy of ancient traditions in the way different Jewish movements read the Bible today. Students of the history of biblical interpretation and of Judaism will find this an important and engaging resource.
Bart D. Ehrman, the New York Times bestselling author of Jesus, Interrupted and God’s Problem reveals which books in the Bible’s New Testament were not passed down by Jesus’s disciples, but were instead forged by other hands—and why this centuries-hidden scandal is far more significant than many scholars are willing to admit. A controversial work of historical reporting in the tradition of Elaine Pagels, Marcus Borg, and John Dominic Crossan, Ehrman’s Forged delivers a stunning explication of one of the most substantial—yet least discussed—problems confronting the world of biblical scholarship.
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.
The Bloomsbury Companion to Jewish Studies is a comprehensive reference guide, providing an overview of Jewish Studies as it has developed as an academic sub-discipline. This volume surveys the development and current state of research in the broad field of Jewish Studies - focusing on central themes, methodologies, and varieties of source materials available. It includes 11 core essays from internationally-renowned scholars and teachers that provide an important and useful overview of Jewish history and the development of Judaism, while exploring central issues in Jewish Studies that cut across historical periods and offer important opportunities to track significant themes throughout the diversity of Jewish experiences. In addition to a bibliography to help orient students and researchers, the volume includes a series of indispensable research tools, including a chronology, maps, and a glossary of key terms and concepts. This is the essential reference guide for anyone working in or exploring the rich and dynamic field of Jewish Studies.
For more than two hundred years, Jews have played important roles in the development of American literature. The Cambridge Companion to Jewish American Literature addresses a wide array of themes and approaches to the distinct yet multifaceted body of Jewish American literature. Essays examine writing from the 1700s to major contemporary writers such as Saul Bellow and Philip Roth. Topics covered include literary history, immigration and acculturation, Yiddish and Hebrew literature, popular culture, women writers, literary theory and poetics, multilingualism, the Holocaust, and contemporary fiction. This collection of specially commissioned essays by leading figures discusses Jewish American literature in relation to ethnicity, religion, politics, race, gender, ideology, history, and ethics, and places it in the contexts of both Jewish and American writing. With its chronology and guides to further reading, this volume will prove valuable to scholars and students alike.
The editors of The Jewish Annotated New Testament show how and why Jews and Christians read many of the same Biblical texts – including passages from the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Psalms – differently. Exploring and explaining these diverse perspectives, they reveal more clearly Scripture’s beauty and power. Esteemed Bible scholars and teachers Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Z. Brettler take readers on a guided tour of the most popular Hebrew Bible passages quoted in the New Testament to show what the texts meant in their original contexts and then how Jews and Christians, over time, understood those same texts. Passages include the creation of the world, the role of Adam and Eve, the Suffering Servant of Isiah, the book of Jonah, and Psalm 22, whose words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” Jesus quotes as he dies on the cross. Comparing various interpretations – historical, literary, and theological - of each ancient text, Levine and Brettler offer deeper understandings of the original narratives and their many afterlives. They show how the text speaks to different generations under changed circumstances, and so illuminate the Bible’s ongoing significance. By understanding the depth and variety by which these passages have been, and can be, understood, The Bible With and Without Jesus does more than enhance our religious understandings, it helps us to see the Bible as a source of inspiration for any and all readers.