Jesus was a Jew: he was circumcised, attended synagogue, wore fringes on his garment. He took inspiration from Jewish prophets and participated in quintessentially Jewish debates. Today, however, Judaism and Christianity are distinct and separate religions, albeit in an unbalanced relationship: Judaism defines itself without any reference to Christianity, whereas Christianity’s self-perception inevitably involves Judaism, precisely because Jesus was Jewish.
How and why did this separation take place? Come and explore the latest scholarship on the complexities of early Jewish-Christian relations.
The traditional assumption, made by both Jews and Christians, is of a parent-child relationship: Judaism came first, and gave birth (unwittingly!) to Christianity. But scholars no longer think in those terms. They see Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity as emerging at the same time, both claiming to be the rightful heirs of biblical Israel, and both reconceptualising divine immanence, given the Roman destruction of the Jerusalem temple.
We will explore the diversity in Jewish and Christian traditions, their shared cultural context in the Graeco-Roman world, and the complex interactions between them as they developed distinct self-identities. We will examine their competing interpretations of scripture. We will also discuss the legacy of this early history for Jewish-Christian relations today.
This course is part of the Oxford University Summer School for Adults (OUSSA) programme.