E-Book Overview
In late antiquity, as Christianity emerged from Judaism, it was not only the new religion that was being influenced by the old. The rise and revolutionary challenge of Christianity also had a profound influence on rabbinic Judaism, which was itself just emerging and, like Christianity, trying to shape its own identity. In The Jewish Jesus, Peter Schäfer reveals the crucial ways in which various Jewish heresies, including Christianity, affected the development of rabbinic Judaism. He even shows that some of the ideas that the rabbis appropriated from Christianity were actually reappropriated Jewish ideas. The result is a demonstration of the deep mutual influence between the sister religions, one that calls into question hard and fast distinctions between orthodoxy and heresy, and even Judaism and Christianity, during the first centuries CE.
E-Book Content
The Jewish Jesus
This page intentionally left blank
The Jewish Jesus How Judaism and Christianit y Sh aped Each Other
Peter Schäfer Princeton University Press Princeton & Oxford
Copyright © 2012 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW press.princeton.edu Jacket illustration: David Anoints Samuel, paint on plaster. WC3 1936.127.14. Courtesy of Yale University Art Gallery, Dura-Europos Collection. All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schäfer, Peter. The Jewish Jesus : how Judaism and Christianity shaped each other / Peter Schäfer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 978-0-691-15390-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Judaism—Relations— Christianity—History. 2. Christianity and other religions—Judaism— History. 3. Messiah—History of doctrines. I. Title. BM535.S26 2012 232.9´0609015—dc23 2011035535 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Adobe Garamond Pro Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
For Lily, Sebastian, Maximilian, Otto, Marie, and Sophia
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
List of Figures ix Acknowledgments xi Abbreviations xiii Introduction 1 1. Different Names of God 21 Offerings 22 Creation 24
R. Simlai’s Collection of Dangerous Bible Verses 27 The Bavli Collection 37 R. Simlai and Christianity 42
2. The Young and the Old God 55 3. God and David 68 Aqiva in the Bavli 70 The David Apocalypse 85 David in Dura Europos 94 4. God and Metatron 103 Rav Idith and the Heretics 104 Metatron the Great Scribe 115 The Celestial High Priest 116 The Prince of the World 123
The Instructor of Schoolchildren in Heaven 125 Two Powers in Heaven 127 Akatriel 131 Metatron in Babylonia 138 Metatron and Christianity 141
viii
contents
5. Has God a Father, a Son, or a Brother? 150 6. The Angels 160
When Were the Angels Created? 160 God’s Consultation with the Angels 165 Angels and Revelation 179 Veneration of Angels 188
7. Adam 197 8. The Birth of the Messiah, or Why Did Baby Messiah Disappear? 214 The Arab 220 Elijah 222 The Messiah 223 The Mother of the Messiah 227 Christianity 228 9. The Suffering Messiah Ephraim 236 Pisqa 34 238 Pisqa 36 242 Pisqa 37 261 Christianity 264 Notes 273 Bibliography 329 Index 343
Figures
1. Western wall of the Dura Europos synagogue 96 2. Original tree design, with objects to its left and right, painted on the two panels above the Torah shrine 97 3. Decorations painted later on the upper part of the original tree design 98 4. Decorations painted later on the lower part of the original tree design 9