The Jewish Jesus

There is a general understanding within religious and academic circles that the incarnate Christ of Christian belief lived and died a faithful Jew. This volume addresses Jesus in the context of Judaism. By emphasizing his Jewishness, the authors challenge today's Jews to reclaim the Nazarene as a proto-rebel rabbi and invite Christians to discover or rediscover the Church's Jewish heritage. The essays in this volume cover historical, literary, liturgical, philosophical, religious, theological, and contemporary issues related to the Jewish Jesus. Several of them were originally presented at a three-day symposium on "e;Jesus in the Context of Judaism and the Challenge to the Church,"e; hosted by the Samuel Rosenthal Center for Judaic Studies at Case Western Reserve University in 2009. In the context of pluralism, in the temper of growing interreligious dialogue, and in the spirit of reconciliation, encountering Jesus as living history for Christians and Jews is both necessary and proper. This book will be of particular interest to scholars of the New Testament and Early Church who are seeking new ways of understanding Jesus in his religious and cultural milieu, as well Jewish and Christian theologians and thinkers who are concerned with contemporary Jewish and Christian relationships.

There is a general understanding within religious and academic circles that the incarnate Christ of Christian belief lived and died a faithful Jew. This volume addresses Jesus in the context of Judaism. By emphasizing his Jewishness, the authors challenge today’s Jews to reclaim the Nazarene as a proto-rebel rabbi and invite Christians to discover or rediscover the Church’s Jewish heritage. The essays in this volume cover historical, literary, liturgical, philosophical, religious, theological, and contemporary issues related to the Jewish Jesus. Several of them were originally presented at a three-day symposium on “Jesus in the Context of Judaism and the Challenge to the Church,” hosted by the Samuel Rosenthal Center for Judaic Studies at Case Western Reserve University in 2009. In the context of pluralism, in the temper of growing interreligious dialogue, and in the spirit of reconciliation, encountering Jesus as living history for Christians and Jews is both necessary and proper. This book will be of particular interest to scholars of the New Testament and Early Church who are seeking new ways of understanding Jesus in his religious and cultural milieu, as well Jewish and Christian theologians and thinkers who are concerned with contemporary Jewish and Christian relationships.

Introduction
Section 1: Reflections on the Jewish Jesus
1 The Jewish Jesus: A Partisan’s Imagination, by Zev Garber
2 The Kabbalah of Rabbi Jesus, by Bruce Chilton
3 The Amazing Mr. Jesus, by James F. Moore
4 Jesus the “Material Jew”, by Joshua Schwartz
5 Jesus Stories, Jewish Liturgy, and Some Evolving Theologies until circa 200 CE: Stimuli and Reactions, by Ziony Zevit
6 Avon Gilyon (Document of Sin, b. Shabb.116a) or Euvanggeleon (Good News), by Herbert W. Basser
7 Psalm 22 in Pesiqta Rabbati: The Suffering of the Jewish Messiah and Jesus, by Rivka Ulmer
Section 2: Responding to the Jewish Jesus
8 What Was at Stake in the Parting of the Ways between Judaism and Christianity?, by Richard L. Rubenstein
9 The Jewish and Greek Jesus, by Yitzchak Kerem
10 Jewish Responses to Byzantine Polemics from the Ninth through the Eleventh Centuries, by Steven Bowman
11 A Meditation on Possible Images of Jewish Jesus in the Pre-Modern Period, by Norman Simms
12 Typical Jewish Misunderstandings of Christ, Christianity, and Jewish-Christian Relations over the Centuries, by Eugene J. Fisher
Section 3: Teaching, Dialogue, Reclamation: Contemporary Views on the Jewish Jesus
13 How Credible is Jewish Scholarship on Jesus?, by Michael J. Cook
14 Taking Thomas to Temple: Introducing Evangelicals to the Jewish Jesus, by Christina M. Smerick
15 The Historical Jesus as Jewish Prophet: Its Meaning for the Modern Jewish-Christian Dialogue, by Sara Mandell
16 Before Whom Do We Stand?, by Henry F. Knight
17 Edith Stein’s Jewish Husband Jesus, by Emily Leah Silverman
18 Can We Talk? The Jewish Jesus in a Dialogue Between Jews and Christians, by Steven Leonard Jacobs
19 The New Jewish Reclamation of Jesus in Late Twentieth-Century America: Realigning and Rethinking Jesus the Jew, by Shaul Magid
Annotated Bibliography
Contributors
Index