The Medieval Afterlife of Hellenistic Judaism - Reception & Reinvention in Western Europe

The relationship between the Christian tradition and Hellenistic Judaism is deeply ambivalent: The earliest Jesus followers were Hellenistic Jews, yet Jews came to be identified as a contaminating force in Christian intellectual history. Late antique and medieval Christians drew deeply on the writings of Hellenistic Jews, like Philo and Josephus, but they identified them as members of a foreign and inferior religious group. The relationship between rabbinic Judaism and Hellenistic Judaism is equally complicated, because Hellenistic Jewish texts were transmitted exclusively by Christians and hence deeply embedded in anti-Jewish discourses. Hellenistic Judaism was thus an inheritance which, at a rhetorical level, was left unclaimed by both Jews and Christians during the Middle Ages.
Through a series of case studies, this volume shows how Hellenistic Jews and the literature they produced came to be woven into the fabric of medieval Christian and Jewish traditions.

Product details

• Assisted by: Carson Bay (Editor), Anthony Ellis (Editor), Judith Mania (Editor), Judith Mania et al (Editor), Mos (Editor), Sara Moscone (Editor), Lena Tröger (Editor)
• Publisher: Schwabe Verlag Basel
• Languages: English, German
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.09.2025
• EAN: 9783796552595
• ISBN: 978-3-7965-5259-5
• No. of pages: 460
• Dimensions: 160 mm x 36 mm x 228 mm
• Weight: 802 g
• Illustrations: 20 Farbabb.
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology; Theologie, Altes Testament, Neues Testament, Religionsphilosophie, Christentum, Judentum, Bibel, Geschichte des Nahen und Mittleren Ostens, Europäische Geschichte, Geschichte der Religion, Kritik und Exegese heiliger Texte, Europäische Geschichte: Renaissance, Katholizismus, römisch-katholische Kirche, Religion und Glaube, Religion, allgemein, Interreligiöse Beziehungen, Europäische Geschichte: Mittelalter, Orthodoxe und orientalisch-orthodoxe Kirchen, Jüdische Texte: Tanach, Tora, Nevi’im, Ketuvim, Afrikanische Geschichte: vorkolonial, Religiöse Gemeinschaften und Mönchstum, Vergleichende Religionswissenschaft, Rabbinische Literatur, Josephus, philo, Christentum: Heilige Texte und geheiligte Schriften, Heilige Schriften und geheiligte Schriften, Antike griechische und römische Philosophie, Judentum: Heilige Texte und geheiligte Schriften, Biblical Studies, History of Christianity, Classical Reception, Second Temple Judaism, Medieval Judaism, Medieval Christianity, Interreligious Studies, Talmudic Studies