The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism: Papers from the St Andrews Conference on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus (Library of Early Christology) Paperback – August 28, 2017 by Carey C. Newman (Editor), James R. Davila (Editor), Gladys S. Lewis (Editor). Baylor University Press, reprint 2017.This volume was originally published by Brill in 1999. I am very pleased that it continues to be useful enough for Baylor to reissue it a paperback edition.
Second Temple Judaism exerted a profound and shaping influence upon early Christianity. The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism documents this influence by exploring the ways in which the Christian praxis of Christ-devotion in the first two centuries of the Common Era can be understood as a manifestation of Jewish monotheism.
The volume approaches this phenomenon along four distinctive lines of inquiry: (1) reexamining (and problematizing) the theological force of monotheism during the Second Temple period; (2) retracing the historical steps of Christianity's adaptation, mutation, and/or redefinition of Jewish monotheism; (3) exploring and debating the influence of non-Jewish traditions on this process; and (4) mapping how Christianity's unique appropriation of Jewish monotheism helps explain the intriguing relationships among emerging Christian, Jewish, and gnostic communities.
Eighteen chapters, each from an expert in the study of early Judaism and Christianity, comprise the volume. The chapters collectively demonstrate how the creation of new mythic narratives, the revelatory power of mystical experiences, and the sociology of community formation capitalized on Jewish mediator traditions to initiate the praxis of Christ-devotion.
I have mentioned Baylor's new Library of Early Christology reprint series here and here and I commented, "This new series reprints some excellent, classic works of scholarship." I'll leave it at that.
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