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Nine prominent scholars and researchers into rabbinic Judaism and
early Christianity here investigate the literary and archaeological
evidence by which the evolution of the synagogue can be traced.
This research project began as the theme of the Philadelphia
Seminar on Christian origins at the University of Pennsylvania
during the academic year 1993/ 1994, chaired by Howard C. Kee and
Lynn Cohick. In addition to papers presented at the Seminar,
outstanding scholars who have analyzed the relevant literature
and/or the archaeological evidence from ancient synagogue sites
over the early centuries of the Common Era were invited to
contribute essays as well. The various contributions to this volume
are presented in two groupings: (1) those concerned with the
development of the synagogue in the land of ancient Israel and (2)
analyses of the diverse and abundant evidence from synagogues in
the dispersion, especially Syria and Asia Minor. Also included is
an examination of the literary and traditional evidence from
historical, rabbinic, and early Christian sources. In addition to
the editor, contributors include James F. Strange, University of
South Florida; Richard A. Horsley, University of Massachusetts;
Joseph Gutman, Wayne State University; Shaye J. D. Cohen, Brown
University; Marianne Bonz, Harvard Divinity School; Lynn H. Cohick,
Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology; J. Andrew Overman,
Macalester College; and Douglas R. Edwards, University of Puget
Sound. Howard Clark Kee is Aurelio Professor of Biblical Studies
Emeritus at Boston University and Visiting Faculty at the
University of Pennsylvania.
To understand the historical beginnings of Christianity, one
requires not only to examine the documents that the movement
produced, but also to scrutinize other evidence - historical,
literary, and archaeological - that can illumine the socio-cultural
context in which Christianity began and how it responded to the
influences that derived from that setting. This involves not only
analysis of the readily accessible content of the relevant literary
evidence, but also attention to the world-views and assumptions
about reality that are inherent in these documents and other
phenomena that have survived from this period. Attention to the
roles of leadership and the modes of formation of social identity
in Judaism and the continuing influence of these developments as
Christianity began to take shape is important for historical
analysis. Distinguished New Testament scholar Kee performs such
readings of the texts and communities in this dazzling study of
early Christian origins. In methodological terms, the historical
study of Christian Origins in all its diversity must involve three
different modes of analysis: epistemological, sociological, and
eschatological. The first concerns the way in which knowledge and
communication of it were perceived. The second seeks to discern the
way in which the community or tradition preserving and conveying
this information defined its group identity and its shared values
and aims. The third focuses on the way in which the group
understood and affirmed its ultimate destiny and that of its
members in the purpose of God. These factors are interrelated, and
features of one mode of perception strongly influence details of
the others, but it is useful to consider each of them in its own
category in order to discern with greater precision the specific
historical features of the spectrum of facets which appear in the
evidence that has survived concerning the origins of Christianity.
In this provocative book, an eminent scholar examines the complex
factors that shaped Judaism and early Christianity, analyzing
cardinal Judaic and Christian texts and the cultural worlds in
which they were written. Howard Clark Kee's sociocultural approach
emphasizes the diversity of viewpoint and belief present in Judaism
and in early Christianity, as well as the many ways in which the
two religions reacted to each other and to the changing
circumstances of the first two centuries of the Common Era.
According to Kee's interpretation of Jewish documents of the
period, Jews began to adopt various models of community to bring
into focus their group identity, to show their special relation to
God, and to articulate their responsibilities within the community
and toward the wider culture. The models they adopted-the community
of the wise, the law-abiding community, the community of mystical
participation, the city or temple model, and the ethnically and
culturally inclusive community-were the means by which they
responded to the challenges and opportunities for reinstating
themselves as God's people. These models in turn influenced early
Christian behavior and writing, becoming means for Christians to
define their type of community, to understand the role of Jesus as
God's agent in establishing the community, and to outline what
their moral life and group structure, as well as their relations
with the wider Jewish and Greco-Roman culture, ought to be.
This book analyzes the evidence about Jesus in a broad range of sources, from ancient pagan and Jewish texts to the earliest Christian sources, including the New Testament apart from the gospel, the canonical gospels, and later Christian texts not included in the Christian canon. Each source is examined in light of the social and cultural context in which it was written. Kee concludes that although the various portrayals of Jesus differ, there is indeed a convergence of evidence about his activities and his message.
This book sketches and illustrates in detail the range of
understandings of the human condition and remedies for ills that
prevailed when Jesus and the apostles - as well as their successors
- were spreading the Christian message and launching Christian
communities in the Graeco-Roman world. Healing played so prominent
a part in Jesus' ministry as depicted in the New Testament that it
is important to understand that aspect of his appeal in the context
of the ways in which it was understood by Greeks, Romans and Jews
of the time. Some saw sickness as the result of magic performed
against the victims by enemies, others as the work of demons. Some
saw health as the result of ordering life according to nature,
emphasising the beneficial effects of natural substances. Jewish
attitudes, for example, ranged widely over the centuries from
hostility towards physicians to regard for them as men endowed by
God with special knowledge for human benefit.
The Cambridge Companion to the Bible, 2nd edition provides in-depth
data and analysis of the production and reception of the canonical
writings of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, and also of the
apocryphal works produced by Jewish and Christian writers. Unique
among single-volume introductions, this book focuses on the
ever-changing social and cultural contexts in which the biblical
authors and their original readers lived. The authors of the first
edition were chosen for their internationally recognized expertise
in their respective fields: the history and literature of Israel;
postbiblical Judaism; biblical archaeology; and the origins and
early literature of Christianity. In this second edition, all
chapters have been updated and thoroughly revised,under the
direction of a new volume editor, Bruce D. Chilton. More than 22
new maps, 90 new photographs and a full-color section help
illustrate the book.
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