Tag: Jewish Backgrounds
Two Online Journals
As news to me, I recently found Jewish Studies, an Internet Journal and the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures openly accessible online.
Online Papers and Lectures
Michael Bird comments that the papers for next week’s Louven conference, “New Perspectives on Paul and the Jews,” are available for download. Of the presenters listed in the program, only Anne-Marie Reijnen’s paper on “Kosmos and Creation in Paul’s Thought” is not currently available. Additionally, in the developing list of audio and video resources over…
Little Bunny Fufu Meets the Maccabees
Sometimes, a bit of humor or oddity can be pedagogically advantageous. In this connection, I have tried to fit the chief, Maccabean figures into the chorus from “Little Bunny Fufu” (who may apparently appear, at least occasionally, as “Little Rabbit Fufu” in the UK) (midi audio, lyrics). There is, of course, a little fudging in…
Roland Deines on Halakah and Community Definition
In reading Roland Deines’ essay in Second Temple Judaism (“The Pharisees Between ‘Judaisms’ and ‘Common Judaism’”), I came across the following, astute paragraph: If it is correct that it was particularly halakah that constituted Pharisees as Pharisees, it is also true that it constituted Essenes as Essenes and Sadducees as Sadducees. The same can be…
Judaism in Justification and Variegated Nomism
In contrast to Sanders’ emphasis on the essential consistency of Palestinian Judaism’s pattern of religion, the essays in Second Temple Judaism (affiliate disclosure) emphasize the nomistic diversity, or variegation, that ancient Judaism exhibited. Consequently, a concise summary of the whole volume that appreciates the variegated findings of each author would be difficult to produce. Therefore,…
Justification and Variegated Nomism
If first-century Judaism had a different shape than much New Testament scholarship has traditionally assumed, then an understanding of the New Testament’s—and especially Paul’s—negative critique of Judaism, as well as the positive, doctrinal affirmations predicated to some degree upon this traditional view of Judaism, may need to be revised. The direction this revision has taken…