Synopses & Reviews
Why did the early Christian church, with its many Gentile members, keep Old Testament commandments about sex and idolatry but disregard many others, like those about food or ritual purity? Did Christianity inherit its norms of moral reasoning from Judaism or invent them afresh?
In Jewish Law in Gentile Churches, Markus Bockmuehl approaches such questions by examining the halakhic (Jewish legal) rationale behind the ethics of Jesus, Paul, and the early Christians. Bockmuehl offers an alternative to the prevailing attitude that law-free Christianity arose in response to Jewish legalism. Drawing heavily upon primary sources, he suggests that early Christian ethics were more solidly based in Jewish legal teaching than has generally been thought.
This important study has far-reaching implications not only for the study of the New Testament, but more broadly for the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. First published by T & T Clark, Jewish Law in Gentile Churches is now available to a North American audience in this affordable paperback edition.
Synopsis
- Shows how early Christianity was indebted to, not free from, Jewish moral teaching
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [241]-279) and indexes.
Table of Contents
Halakhah and ethics in the Jesus tradition -- Matthew's divorce texts in the light of pre-rabbinic Jewish law -- 'Let the dead bury their dead': Jesus and the law revisited -- James, Israel and Antioch -- Natural law in Second Temple Judaism -- Natural law in the New Testament? -- The Noachide commandments and New Testament ethics -- The beginning of Christian public ethics: from Luke to Aristides and Diognetus -- Jewish and Christian public ethics in the early Roman Empire.