Session 1
Kendall Davis, University of Edinburgh, ‘Making Jesus in Our Own Image: The Nonviolent Messiah as “Redefinition” of Jewish Messianism?’
In the synoptic gospels Jesus is portrayed as messiah. Yet scholars often insist that Jesus or the gospels redefine what this entailed. As Sigmund Mowinckel states, “For Jesus, the Jewish Messianic idea was the temptation of Satan, which He had to reject.” One of the most typical ways that Jewish messianism is allegedly redefined in the synoptics is the rejection of violence. The story goes that while Jewish messiahs are violent, conquering warlords, the synoptic messiah is a peaceful, suffering messiah who rejects violence as antithetical to his mission. This paper will critique this trope by discussing (1) the role of violence in synoptic portrayals of Jesus in comparison with other Jewish messiahs of the period and (2) how the synoptic gospels position their discussion of God’s anointed one in relation to broader “messianic expectations.” While the synoptic Jesus has a complex relationship with violence, the messianism of the synoptic gospels is best understood not as a redefinition of Second Temple Jewish messianism but as a particular instance of that very phenomenon.
Barbara Crostini, Newman Institute, ‘The Dubious Reputation of the Widow of Zarephath from Dura Europos to Luke 4’
One of the crux interpretum of Luke 4, a pivotal passage in the structure of the third Gospel, is finding a reason for the extremely violent reaction of the inhabitants of Nazareth against Jesus: they wanted to throw him off a cliff. Their action is all the more puzzling as it appears to contradict their initial welcoming of Jesus’ reading in the synagogue. The words of Isaiah that Jesus reads out, though extreme and in many ways revolutionary, had not by themselves raised opposition, and neither had Jesus’s authoritative teaching, up to a point. What did Jesus say for the atmosphere to change so dramatically, from cheerful welcoming to hostile pursuit? The analysis of a panel painting on the West wall of the early third-century synagogue at Dura Europos suggests a possible answer. In it, the widow of Zarephath is represented wearing yellow garments, which in Roman theatrical conventions signified a prostitute’s trade. I suggest that the disproportionate reaction was due to the reverberations of her reputation. Through their violence, Nazarenes were dissociating themselves from such dubious performative traditions. The passage itself is constructed to obfuscate a direct connection to the Sareptian by inserting Naaman’s episode in-between, a decoy which nevertheless keeps the referent towards Syria, while preserving a dramatic ending in Jesus’s mysterious escape “off stage”.
Matthew Sharp, University of St Andrews, ‘Supercelestial Gods Between Philosophy and Apocalyptic’
The myth of the soul’s ascent in Plato’s Phaedrus 246e–247b is a source-text utilised by “pagans,” Jews, and Christians alike in the first three centuries CE to describe a supercelestial location where the highest God dwells (e.g., Philo, Opif. 70–71; Maximus of Tyre 11.10; Origen, Cels. 6.19–20). Recent scholarship on ancient Jewish pseudepigrapha has also drawn on this conversation to help explain the ouranological schemes of certain apocalypses such as 3 Baruch and the Apocalypse of Abraham (Poirier 2004; Kulik 2019). In this paper I argue that these apocalypses are not drawing on this Platonic tradition but are working with a different cosmology. Rather than positing a separate realm “above heaven” they simply add more heavens, which exhibit a physical continuity with the heavens below. This comparison has implications for how we understand different notions of “transcendence” across various texts, traditions, and scholarly canons. It also has implications for the interpretation of some New Testament texts that speak of Christ’s ascent above the heavens (Eph 4:10; Heb 7:26).
Session 2
Panel review of Grant Macaskill, The Entangled Enoch: 2 Enoch and the Cultures of Late Antiquity (Brill, 2024).
Book Abstract: This study reframes and reorients the study of 2 Enoch, moving beyond debates about Christian or Jewish authorship and considering the work in the context of eclectic and erudite cultures in late antiquity, particularly Syria. The study compares the work with the Parables of Enoch and then with a variety of writings associated with late antique Syrian theology, demonstrating the distinctively eclectic character of 2 Enoch. It offers new paradigms for research into the pseudepigrapha. Book site: https://brill.com/display/title/69998?language=en
Panellists: Annette Yoshiko Reed, Harvard University; Liv Lied, Norwegian School of Theology
Respondent: Grant Macaskill, University of Aberdeen
Session 3
Nathanael Vette, University of Edinburgh, ‘Within What Judaism? Interbellum Judaism (70-130 CE) and the Study of Formative Judaism and Christian Origins’
Redescribing Christian documents as ‘within Judaism’ has now become de rigueur. Corpora like the Pauline epistles, Gospels and Acts – as well as early Christian attitudes towards Torah, gentiles and ritual purity – are increasingly seen, not as distinctive Christian expressions, but as representing the diversity of ‘Second Temple’ Jewish practices and beliefs. The trend has challenged stubborn chauvinistic myths of early Christian uniqueness. What the ‘within Judaism’ approach has largely failed to appreciate is Jewish uniqueness, particularly the distinctiveness of certain periods in Jewish history. To this point, the ‘within Judaism’ label has been applied to the authentic Paulines and canonical Gospels, corpora on either side of 70 CE. While Paul’s experience as a Jew would have been mostly continuous with what came before (inviting comparisons to other Second Temple material), the experience of Jews living after 70 CE was not. When early Christian documents are read alongside Jewish documents and practices confidently dated to the period between 70 and 130 CE, the broad contours of an Interbellum Judaism emerge: there is a shared interested in 1) the destruction and reimagining of the Temple; 2) the continuation and renewal of the covenant; 3) the restoration of the land and the Messianic kingdom; 4) identity formation and redefinition; and 5) perseverance, piety and prayer. Adopting Interbellum Judaism as an analytical and hermeneutical category would refine the welcome insights of the ‘within Judaism’ approach.
Ryan Heinsch, Crown University, ‘Living Like a Gentile: Paul, Jubilees, and the Transgression of Group Halakha’
In Galatians 2:14—the so-called “Antioch Incident”—Paul accuses Peter of living like a gentile. While scholars have long held that Paul’s description of Peter was factual because Peter had abandoned kashrut, more recent proposals suggest that Paul’s language was meant to be hyperbolic (e.g., Willitts) or subversive irony (e.g., Nanos). This paper will challenge these claims by considering Paul’s description of Peter alongside of a similar accusation found in Jubilees 6:32–35 made against other presumably Torah observant groups who transgress the observance of Jubilees’s preferred calendar. From this, it will be argued that Paul’s description of Peter was honest—not hyperbolic or ironic—but necessitates location within the broader context of intra-Jewish halakhic dispute that could treat the transgression of a group’s halakha as akin to living like a gentile. The accusation of living like a gentile, then, does not mean that Peter had abandoned kashrut, but it does mean that, in abandoning table-fellowship with foreskinned gentiles, Peter violated a salient aspect of the halakha to which he and other such messianics subscribed.
Logan Williams, University of Aberdeen, ‘Korban and Conflicting Commandments: The Pharisaic Ruling on the Vow of Mark 7.11’
In Mark 7.11, Jesus reports that the ‘tradition of the elders’ includes a ruling on a rather complicated legal case in which one speaks to their parents, ‘Whatever you would benefit from my property is Korban!’. Jesus objects to the ruling of the Pharisaic tradition which considers this vow binding. While commentators often proceed as if the Pharisaic position is obviously incoherent, this paper explores the possible legal reasoning that justified the elders’ ruling by tracing how Jews understood and practiced the fifth commandment and prohibitive vowing in the late second temple, Tannaitic, and Amoraic eras. In light of the rabbinic explication that obligation to vows can override positive commandments (הנדרים חלים על דבר מצוה) and the widespread principle that honouring God ranks higher than honouring parents (e.g., Jos. C. Ap. 2.206), I tentatively argue that the elders’ position was based on the conviction that the (d’Orayta) obligation to abide by a vow (Num. 30.3; Deut. 21.21–23) constituted a matter of honouring God and could therefore override the obligation to honour parents if those two obligations came into conflict. Properly understanding the Pharisaic position will facilitate a more precise account of Jesus’ objection this ruling in Mark 7.9–13.