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Beginning with a startling endorsement of the patristic view of Judaism—that it was a "carnal" religion, in contrast to the spiritual vision of the Church—Daniel Boyarin argues that rabbinic Judaism was based on a set of assumptions about the human body that were profoundly different from those of Christianity. The body—specifically, the sexualized body—could not be renounced, for the Rabbis believed as a religious principle in the generation of offspring and hence in intercourse sanctioned by marriage. This belief bound men and women together and made impossible the various modes of gender separation practiced by early Christians. The commitment to coupling did not imply a resolution of the unequal distribution of power that characterized relations between the sexes in all late-antique societies. But Boyarin argues strenuously that the male construction and treatment of women in rabbinic Judaism did not rest on a loathing of the female body. Thus, without ignoring the currents of sexual domination that course through the Talmudic texts, Boyarin insists that the rabbinic account of human sexuality, different from that of the Hellenistic Judaisms and Pauline Christianity, has something important and empowering to teach us today.
Many Bible interpreters assume a biblical text has only one right meaning and that it can be found if the reader uses the right methods. Charles Cosgrove, on the other hand, recognizes that language often admits multiple meanings and that scholars must deal with several sensible readings. As an example, Elusive Israel examines the identity of Israel in Romans 11, arguing for three equally plausible interpretations.
This work covers the typological relation of rabbinic Judaism to Christianity, and provides a re-examination, by going back to the roots, of a rabbinic Judaism that would not manifest some of the deleterious social ideologies and practices that modern orthodox Judaism generally does.
Is the difference of male and female to be "completely shaken off" so that men and women are no longer men and women but merely human beings? The great seventh-century saint Maximus the Confessor said yes, but such thinking is difficult if not impossible to reconcile with much else in Christian tradition that obliges men and women to live as either men or women. Origen's Revenge contrasts the two main sources of early Christian thinking on male and female: the generally negative view of Greek philosophy, limiting sexual distinction to the body and holding the body in low regard, and the much more positive view of Hebrew Scripture, in which sexual distinction and reproduction are both deemed naturally good and necessary for human existence. These two views account for much of the controversy in early Christianity concerning marriage and monasticism. They also still contribute to current controversies over sex roles, gender identity, and sexual ethics. Origen's Revenge also develops the more Hebrew line of early Christian thought to propose a new understanding of male and female with a firmer grounding in scripture, tradition, theology, and philosophy and with profound implications for all human relationships, whether social, political, or spiritual.
An Independent Book of the Month Penises, and the things people do with them, have been subjects of controversy for a long time. This book examines how one thing that some people do to penises-remove the foreskin-has become a site upon which vital questions of gender, race, religion, sexuality, and psychic life are negotiated. While most contemporary work on the subject is concerned with whether circumcision is right or wrong, safe or harmful, Circumcision on the Couch takes as its starting point that the significance of male circumcision exceeds anatomical and juridical considerations. Deploying a feminist Lacanian framework, while drawing from a wide range of archival sources and critical thought, Jordan Osserman asks: How can psychoanalysis help us shed light on the ideologies, discourses, and fantasies surrounding circumcision and the impassioned stances for and against it? And how might the history of circumcision, in turn, allow us to re-assess and clarify how we understand the split (or “snipped”) subject of psychoanalysis?
Among the proliferation of Protestant sects across England in the seventeenth century, a remarkable number began adopting demonstratively Jewish ritual practices. From circumcision to Sabbath-keeping and dietary laws, their actions led these movements were labelled by their contemporaries as Judaizers, with various motives proposed. Were these Judaizing steps an excrescence of over-exuberant biblicism? Were they a by-product of Protestant apocalyptic tendencies? Were they a response to the changing status of Jews in Europe? In Jewish Christians in Puritan England, Aidan Cottrell-Boyce shows that it was instead another aspect of Puritanism that led to this behaviour: the need to be recognised as a 'singular', positively distinctive, Godly minority. This quest for demonstrable uniqueness as a form of assurance united the Judaizing groups with other Protestant movements, while the depiction of Judaism in Christian rhetoric at the time made them a peculiarly ideal model upon which to base the marks of their salvation.
The Salvation of Israel investigates Christianity's eschatological Jew: the role and characteristics of the Jews at the end of days in the Christian imagination. It explores the depth of Christian ambivalence regarding these Jews, from Paul's Epistle to the Romans, through late antiquity and the Middle Ages, to the Puritans of the seventeenth century. Jeremy Cohen contends that few aspects of a religion shed as much light on the character and the self-understanding of its adherents as its expectations for the end of time. Moreover, eschatological beliefs express and mold an outlook toward nonbelievers, situating them in an overall scheme of human history and conditioning interaction with them as that history unfolds. Cohen's close readings of biblical commentary, theological texts, and Christian iconography reveal the dual role of the Jews of the last days. For rejecting belief and salvation in Jesus Christ, they have been linked to the false messiah—the Antichrist, the agent of Satan and the exemplary embodiment of evil. Yet from its inception, Christianity has also hinged its hopes for the second coming on the enlightenment and repentance of the Jews; for then, as Paul prophesized, "all Israel will be saved." In its vast historical scope, from the ancient Mediterranean world of early Christianity to seventeenth-century England and New England, The Salvation of Israel offers a nuanced and insightful assessment of Christian attitudes toward Jews, rife with inconsistency and complexity, thus contributing significantly to our understanding of Jewish-Christian relations.
Exploring how visual media presents claims to Jewish authenticity, Imagining Jewish Authenticity argues that Jews imagine themselves and their place within America by appealing to a graphic sensibility. Ken Koltun-Fromm traces how American Jewish thinkers capture Jewish authenticity, and lingering fears of inauthenticity, in and through visual discourse and opens up the subtle connections between visual expectations, cultural knowledge, racial belonging, embodied identity, and the ways images and texts work together.
The question of whether or not Thomas Aquinas's theology is supersessionist has elicited deep disagreement among scholars. Some maintain that Aquinas is the standard-bearer of a supersessionist church that undermines Judaism, while others hold that Aquinas avoids supersessionism altogether. Yet the discussion over whether Aquinas's theology is supersessionist has not always carefully interrogated the term "supersessionism," nor has it taken into account some of Aquinas's most relevant texts on the subject of Israel and the Church: his commentaries on Paul's letters. Drawing upon the Pauline commentaries, Aquinas on Israel and the Church argues that while Aquinas's most commonly articulated view is that Jewish worship is discontinued after the passion of Christ, Aquinas also advanced views that set this into question, and in ways that support contemporary Christian teachings that affirm the value of postbiblical Judaism.
The relationship between Israel and the church continues to be a controversial topic led by this question: Does the church replace, supersede, or fulfill the nation of Israel in God's plan, or will Israel be saved and restored with a unique identity and role? In Has the Church Replaced Israel?, author Michael J. Vlach evaluates the doctrine of replacement theology (also known as supersessionism) down through history but ultimately argues in favor of the nonsupersessionist position. Thoroughly vetting the most important hermeneutical and theological issues related to the Israel/church relationship, Vlach explains why, "there are compelling scriptural reasons in both testaments to believe in a future salvation and restoration of the nation Israel."