I THINK THIS IS A GOOD IDEA:

Rabbi: Jews Should Know New Testament

By RACHEL ZOLL
The Associated Press
Saturday, April 8, 2006; 1:01 PM

-- Of all the texts considered required reading in a thorough Jewish education, one major work with Jewish roots is usually missing from everyone's list: the New Testament.

Most Jews shun Christian Scripture. As a result, they can't answer Christians who ask why Jews don't accept Jesus as the Messiah.

Reform Rabbi Michael J. Cook says this "self-imposed ignorance" is dangerous.

At a time when many Christians are embracing the Jewish origins of their faith, holding Passover seders before Easter, Cook says he has taken on the "Herculean task" of convincing Jews they must learn how the Gospels molded Christian attitudes toward Judaism.

[...]

I think he's right, although this point is legitimate too:

Burt Visostsky, a longtime professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the flagship institution for Conservative Judaism, said many rabbinical students enroll at the seminary without strong backgrounds in their own religion _ let alone Christianity and other faiths.

"In an ideal world, of course we'd train our students to know something about Christianity and also Islam," said Visostsky, who teaches Midrash and interreligious studies. "But where is it on the triage list? I'm afraid not very high."

Despite that, I hope that Professor Cook has some success in getting Jewish seminaries interested in the New Testament. By the same token, Christian seminarians would do well to learn something about rabbinic texts during their training, and this would alleviate many serious misunderstandings of Judaism that arise when people think they can understand it just by reading the New Testament.

My recent work has focused on how scholars should and shouldn't use the Old Testament pseudepigrapha as Jewish sources. (See my book, above right, and a popular article. In the book I also discuss the same issue for Josephus, Philo, and the Old Testament Apocrypha.) One of these days I mean to write another article on how scholars of early Christianity should approach Jewish sources, including the rabbinic literature, but time has not permitted it so far. Meanwhile, a few thoughts here and here.