Academics
New Testament Traditions: Between Messianic Margins and Broader Judaism
New Testament Traditions: Between Messianic Margins and Broader Judaism
Acknowledging the multifaceted nature of late Second Temple Judaism, the projected course, taught by Prof. Serge Ruzer, will highlight the existence of various avenues of communication between nascent Christianity and its Jewish setting. It will first examine a number of representative examples, where the patterns of belief reflected in the New Testament and those of another roughly contemporaneous Jewish eschatological community, that behind the Dead Sea Scrolls, reciprocally clarify one another. Following this discussion on what may be called the messianic margins of the 1st-century Judaism, represented by these two groups, we will address possible echoes of Hellenistic Jewish thought discerned in the New Testament. And, finally, we will discuss cases of links to Jewish traditions of broader circulation, with a special attention to instances, where the New Testament writings appear to be our earliest witness to the existence of such traditions.
Learning outcomes:
Students will be exposed to the multifaced nature of late Second Temple Jewish eschatological movements, of which the Qumran community and early Jesus followers are two great examples. Discerning common backdrop agenda, the comparative discussion will also allow to better appreciate the different directions in which these two branches developed their messianic outlook. The emphasis on the presence in the New Testament of broader patterns of religious discourse will encourage a nuanced appraisal of the interplay between marginal and mainstream in the nascent Christian outlook.
Contents (Selected Topics)
Three-Crown Messianic Pattern in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Gospels, Paul and Hebrews
Qumranic Pesher vis-à-vis Matthew’s Fulfillment Quotations
Double Love Commandment: Jesus versus Qumran?
Expectation of the End and the Destruction of Wicked at Qumran and Dynamics in Paul.
Inauguration of Messianic Enterprise: The Synoptic Tradition and Broader Judaism
Jesus and Paul as Witnesses for Broader Ideas on the Torah in Eschatology
Gospel of John as an Early Witness to the Messiah-as-New-Moses Idea
Methodology:
Seminar discussion of selected New Testament texts with a focus on their strategies of self-identification vis-à-vis broader Judaism and another contemporaneous messianic group, that of Qumran.
Means of evaluation: to be defined
Bibliography
A. Hogeterp, Expectations of the End: A Comparative Traditio-Historical Study of Eschatological, Apocalyptic and Messianic Ideas in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament (Leiden: Brill, 2009) – available on-line via the Mt. Scopus Hebrew University Library.
S. Ruzer, Early Jewish Messianism in the New Testament: Reflections in the Dim Mirror (Leiden: Brill, 2020) – available on-line via the Mt. Scopus Hebrew University Library.
A. Runesson, “What Does It Mean to Read New Testament Texts ‘within Judaism’?” New Testament Studies 69.3 (2023), pp.299-312.