The rabbinic response to Christianity

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521772488.013

11 - The rabbinic response to Christianity

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008

Steven Katz

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Steven T. Katz

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Steven Katz: Affiliation:
Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies and Department of Religion, Boston University
Steven T. Katz: Affiliation:
Boston University

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INTRODUCTION

No full accounting of the separation of Christianity from Judaism can be provided because of the paucity and ambiguity of the existing evidence. The rabbinic sources of the mishnaic era provide very little information on the subject and what information is supplied is almost always subject to dispute as to its exact meaning and historical value, while the Christian evidence is often suspect because of its polemical theological agenda.

Given what we do know, it is fair to assume that the situation was complex and that the separation took place over a number of decades and was due to a variety of factors, social, theological, and political.

BEGINNINGS

Despite its tendentiousness, the narrative of the martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 6.8—8.3) appears to be accurate in reporting that the earliest Christian preaching almost immediately provoked Jewish antagonism. No consensus, however, has been reached by modern scholars concerning which features of the Christian message were most responsible for the hostility. It is sometimes supposed that halachic nonconformity on the part of Christians was the primary cause of friction. In view of the wide diversity of halachic practice in the period of the Second Temple, however, this is hardly an adequate explanation in itself, especially for the very earliest antipathy that predates the conversion and teaching of Paul, although, as we shall see, it was probably a contributory factor. It is more likely that Christology was at the center of the conflict. The exact nature of the early christological formulation(s) is the subject of intense scholarly dispute, but it would appear that the christological construals represented a dramatic, to some considerable degree innovative, remythologization of Judaism. Claims for the person of Jesus in the cosmic drama – which later would lead to trinitarian formulations and assertions that Jesus was the “Son of God,” and the like – along with claims regarding the resurrection, already found repeatedly in early Christian documents (e.g., 1 Cor. 15.3–8), would contest existing theological understandings and make claims for the centrality of Jesus that challenged, if they did not altogether transcend, the boundaries of first-century Palestinian Judaism, even with all its acknowledged diversity.

Keywords

Christianity mishnaic era Jewish identity Bar Kochba Rabbinic response

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of Judaism , pp. 259 - 298

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521772488.013 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2006

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11 - The rabbinic response to Christianity

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