Browsing by Subject "Jewish Studies"
- Results Per Page
- Sort Options
Item Open Access Continuity and Discontinuity: the Temple and Early Christian Identity(2008-12-10) Wardle, Timothy ScottIn Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, he asks the readers this question: "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you?" (1 Cor 3:16). Although Paul is the earliest Christian writer to explicitly identify the Christian community with the temple of God, this correlation is not a Pauline innovation. Indeed, this association between the community and the temple first appears in pre-Pauline Christianity (see Gal 2:9) and is found in many layers of first-century Christian tradition. Some effects of this identification are readily apparent, as the equation of the Christian community with a temple conveyed the belief that the presence of God was now present in this community in a special way, underlined the importance of holy living, and provided for the metaphorical assimilation of Gentiles into the people of God. Though some of the effects of this correlation are clear, its origins are less so.
This study contends that the early Christian idea of the Christian community as a temple should be understood in relation to the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Moreover, this nascent Christian conception of the community as a temple should be seen in light of the existence of other Jewish temples which were established as alternatives to the one in Jerusalem: namely, the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim, the Oniad temple in Leontopolis, and the "temple of men" at Qumran. Though the formation of each temple was a complex affair, in each case the primary motivating factor appears to have been conflict with the Jerusalem religious establishment.
This work concludes that the application of temple terminology to the Christian community also developed through conflict with the Jerusalem chief priests charged with oversight of the temple, and that the creation of a communal temple idea should be understood as a culturally recognizable way to register dissent against the Jerusalem priesthood. As a result, we are better able to situate the early Christians in their originally Jewish nexus and see the extent to which tension in Jerusalem helped to forge the nascent Christian psyche.
Item Open Access Genealogy, Circumcision, and Conversion in Early Judaism and Christianity(2010) Thiessen, MatthewIn his important work, The Beginnings of Jewishness, Shaye J. D. Cohen has argued that what it meant to be a Jew underwent considerable revision during the second century B.C.E. While previously a Jew was defined in terms of ethnicity (by which Cohen means biological descent), in the wake of Judaism's sustained encounter with Hellenism, the term Jew came to be defined as an ethno-religion--that is, one could choose to become a Jew. Nonetheless, the recent work of scholars, such as Christine E. Hayes, has demonstrated that there continued to exist in early Judaism a strain of thinking that, in theory at least, excluded the possibility that Gentiles could become Jews. This genealogical exclusion, found in works such as Jubilees, was highly indebted to the "holy seed" theology evidenced in Ezra-Nehemiah, a theology which defined Jewishness in genealogical terms.
This dissertation will attempt to contribute to a greater understanding of differing conceptions of circumcision in early Judaism, one that more accurately describes the nature of Jewish thought with regard to Jewishness, circumcision, and conversion. In terms of methodology, my dissertation will combine historical criticism with a literary approach to the texts under consideration. The dissertation will focus on texts from the Hebrew Bible as well as Jewish texts from the Second Temple period as these writings provide windows into the various forms of Judaism from which the early Christian movement arose.
Beginning with the Hebrew Bible, I will argue that there is no evidence that circumcision was considered to be a rite of conversion to Israelite religion. In fact, circumcision, particularly the infant circumcision instantiated within Israelite and early Jewish society excludes from the covenant those not properly descended from Abraham. In the Second Temple period, many Jews did begin to conceive of Jewishness in terms which enabled Gentiles to become Jews. Nonetheless, some Jews found this definition of Jewishness problematic, and defended the borders of Jewishness by reasserting a strictly genealogical conception of Jewish identity. Consequently, some Gentiles who underwent conversion to Judaism in this period faced criticism because of their suspect genealogy. Our sources record such exclusion with regard to the Herodians, Idumeans who had converted to Judaism.
Additionally, a more thorough examination of how circumcision and conversion were perceived by Jews in the Second Temple period will be instrumental in better understanding early Christianity. It is the argument of this dissertation that further attention to a definition of Jewishness that was based on genealogical descent has broader implications for understanding the variegated nature of early Christian mission to the Gentiles in the first century C.E.