Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Introduction -- Section 1: Reflections on the Jewish Jesus -- 1 The Jewish Jesus: A Partisan's Imagination -- 2 The Kabbalah of Rabbi Jesus -- 3 The Amazing Mr. Jesus -- 4 Jesus the "Material Jew"--5 Jesus Stories, Jewish Liturgy, and Some Evolving Theologies until circa 200 CE: Stimuli and Reactions -- 6 Avon Gilyon (Document of Sin, b. Shabb.116a) or Euvanggeleon (Good News) -- 7 Psalm 22 in Pesiqta Rabbati: The Suffering of the Jewish Messiah and Jesus -- Section 2: Responding to the Jewish Jesus -- 8 What Was at Stake in the Parting of the Ways between Judaism and Christianity? -- 9 The Jewish and Greek Jesus -- 10 Jewish Responses to Byzantine Polemics from the Ninth through the Eleventh Centuries -- 11 A Meditation on Possible Images of Jewish Jesus in the Pre-Modern Period -- 12 Typical Jewish Misunderstandings of Christ, Christianity, and Jewish-Christian Relations over the Centuries -- Section 3: Teaching, Dialogue, Reclamation: Contemporary Views on the Jewish Jesus -- 13 How Credible is Jewish Scholarship on Jesus? -- 14 Taking Thomas to Temple: Introducing Evangelicals to the Jewish Jesus -- 15 The Historical Jesus as Jewish Prophet: Its Meaning for the Modern Jewish-Christian Dialogue -- 16 Before Whom Do We Stand? -- 17 Edith Stein's Jewish Husband Jesus -- 18 Can We Talk? The Jewish Jesus in a Dialogue Between Jews and Christians -- 19 The New Jewish Reclamation of Jesus in Late Twentieth-Century America: Realigning and Rethinking Jesus the Jew -- Annotated Bibliography -- Contributors -- Index

Matthew's sharpening of Jesus' attacks on the scribes and Pharisees is an embarrassment to many Christian interpreters and an outrage to some Jewish ones. It is commonly alleged that Matthew in fact has no particular knowledge of distinctions between the Jewish leadership groups. In a fresh examination of Matthew's treatment of the scribes, the author argues that the first Evangelist is actually at pains to protect the esteem in which the office of the Jewish scribe itself was traditionally held, reserving Jesus' direct criticism for the unenlightened Pharisees.

This book brings together the contributions of the foremost specialists on the relationship of the New Testament and Rabbinic Literature. They present the history of scholarship and deal with the main methodological issues, and analyze both legal and literary problems.

Dating from the first century, the Didache offers a unique window into early Jewish Christianity. Its Jewish-Christian author seeks to mediate the Torah for the text's gentile recipients, steering diplomatically between the Scylla and Charybdis of the Law-observing church in Jerusalem and Paul's more open teaching. The Didache is thus very clear that gentile believers do not need to convert to Judaism, but at the same time its author argues that the Torah - particularly the second table of the Decalogue - is universal. The Deuteronomic paradigm of the 'Way of Life' against the 'Way of Death' applies to all. In Torah for Gentiles? Daniel Nessim explores this juxtaposition in depth. How is Jesus' 'easy yoke' to be held alongside the strenuous commands of Mosaic Law? What does it mean to attain perfection? The path the Didache offers is not as straightforward as one might suppose, yet both Jews and Christians would recognize its moral basis as largely the same as that which underpins Judaeo-Christian values today. Moreover, the Christian community it describes, from a time when that community still looked very much to its Jewish forebears, makes it a fascinating example of the origins of Christian life and worship.

This volume brings together essays on the theme of sexuality and gender by William R. G. Loader, one of the leading specialists in the field, arising from his extensive investigation of early Jewish and Christian literature about such issues as marriage, adultery, divorce, celibacy, gender roles, and incest