The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

by Adam H. Becker (editor), Annette Yoshiko Reed (Editor)

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.

Genres: Church History, History

410 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 2003

Reviews

[elbren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Explorations on faith and practice along the Jewish-Christian Continuum, during the time when both rabbinic Judaism and orthodox Christianity were defining ourselves. I'd've preferred more archeology, and some examination of the Ethiopian evidence (having its Christian foundations in late antiquity, and being the most "Jewish" of the extant Christian traditions), but well worth reading anyway.