Playing a Jewish Game
eBook - PDF

Playing a Jewish Game

Gentile Christian Judaizing in the First and Second Centuries CE

  1. 224 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Playing a Jewish Game

Gentile Christian Judaizing in the First and Second Centuries CE

About this book

Is it possible that early Christian anti-Judaism was directed toward people other than Jews?

Michele Murray proposes that significant strands of early Christian anti-Judaism were directed against Gentile Christians. More specifically, it was directed toward Gentile Christian judaizers. These were Christians who combined a commitment to Christianity with adherence in varying degrees to Jewish practices, without viewing such behaviour as contradictory. Several Christian leaders thought that these community members dangerously blurred the boundaries between Christianity and Judaism. As such, Gentile Christian judaizers became the target of much anti-Jewish rhetoric in various early Christian writings.

Evidence of Gentile Christian judaizers can be found in canonical sources, such as Pauls Letter to the Galatians and the Book of Revelation, as well as non-canonical sources, such as the Epistle of Barnabas, the Didache, and Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho. In order to compare the phenomenon of judaizing and the reaction to it of ecclesiastical authorities, Murray organizes the evidence by probable geographical location, using Asia Minor and Syria as the two main loci.

The phenomenon of Gentile Christian judaizing is examined within the broader context of Jewish-Christian relations in the early centuries, and is the first attempt to draw all possible references to Gentile Christian judaizers together into one study to consider them as a whole. This discussion invites readers to reflect on the existence of Gentile Christian judaizers as another point on the continuum of Jewish-Christian relations in the Greco-Roman world — an area, Murray concludes, that needs to be more carefully defined.

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Yes, you can access Playing a Jewish Game by Michele Murray in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Theology & Religion & Jewish History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. Acknowledgements
  3. MAPS
  4. CHAPTER 1 Introduction: Judaizing and the Early Development of Christianity
  5. CHAPTER 2 Gentile Attraction to Judaism in the Roman Empire
  6. CHAPTER 3 Christian Judaizing in Galatia: Paul’s Letter to the Galatians
  7. CHAPTER 4 Christian Judaizing in Syria: Barnabas, the Didache, and Pseudo-Clementine Literature
  8. CHAPTER 5 Christian Judaizing in Asia Minor: Revelation, Ignatius, and Justin Martyr
  9. CHAPTER 6 Marcion and Melito: More Evidence of Christian Judaizing in Asia Minor?
  10. CHAPTER 7 Conclusion: Christian Judaizing and the Forging of a Distinct Christian Identity
  11. APPENDIX: Scholarly Perceptions of Jewish-Christian Relations in Antiquity
  12. Notes
  13. Bibliography
  14. Ancient Sources Index
  15. Subject Index