Moving Through the Polis, Asserting Christian Jewishness

2020 ◽  
pp. 96-127
Author(s):  
Christopher Stroup
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Jewish Community ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Acts Of The Apostles ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Literary Representation ◽  
Civic Associations ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Civic Space ◽  
Jewish Christians

This chapter explores how Acts of the Apostles and the Salutaris Foundation inscription each uses ethnic reasoning together with civic and imperial space to produce unified identities. Focusing on Paul's visits to Jewish civic associations in Acts 15:30–18:23, it shows how the repeated representation of civic space constructs a Jewish identity that includes proselyte non-Jews and at the same time makes an internal distinction between two Jewish identities: Christians and other Jews. Thus, the difference between Christians and non-Christians is one internal to Jewish identity. The chapter then compares this to how the Salutaris Foundation regulates movement through the Ephesian cityscape in ways that both reimagine Ephesian identity and distinguish between “true” and other Ephesians. While Acts seeks to incorporate non-Jewish Christians into the Jewish community, the Salutaris Foundation seeks to marginalize those Ephesians who do not conform to the benefactor's desired construal of Ephesian identity. Finally, the chapter studies how the literary representation in Acts of Paul's journeys throughout the Roman Empire also constructed a unified Christian identity that could be contrasted with the purported disunity of other Jewish civic associations.

Recontextualizing Acts

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-40
Author(s):  
Christopher Stroup
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Acts Of The Apostles ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Religious Rhetoric ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Ancient Christianity ◽  
Previous Scholarship

This chapter situates Acts of the Apostles historically and examines previous scholarship on Jewish identity and Acts. It argues that Lukan ethnic reasoning—as mediated by the cultural context of Greek cities under Roman rule—sought to create an alternate construal of Jewish and Christian identity. This alternate identity integrated Christian non-Jews into the civic hierarchy. The chapter then surveys the scholarship on Jews and Judaism in Acts and looks at recent developments in interpretation that have emphasized the author's rhetoric rather than “attitude.” It also discusses four texts that highlight the value of ethnic reasoning and, scholar of ancient Christianity, Denise Kimber Buell's discussion of four uses of religious rhetoric in ethnic reasoning. Ultimately, Acts leverages the connection between gods, people, and places in its depiction of Jewish identity. It employs ethnic rhetoric in order to present all Christians as Jews and to privilege Christians as an ideal embodiment of Jewishness for the Roman-era polis.

The Christians Who Became Jews

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Stroup
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Acts Of The Apostles ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Religious Difference ◽  
Identity And Difference ◽  
Previous Scholarship ◽  
Acts 2 ◽  
Jerusalem Council

When considering Jewish identity in Acts of the Apostles, scholars have often emphasized Jewish and Christian religious difference, an emphasis that masks the intersections of civic, ethnic, and religious identifications in antiquity. This book explores the depiction of Jewish and Christian identity by analyzing ethnicity within a broader material and epigraphic context. Examining Acts through a new lens, the book shows that the text presents Jews and Jewish identity in multiple, complex ways, in order to legitimate the Jewishness of Christians. The book begins with an overview of the importance of ethnicity and ethnic rhetoric to the formation of ancient Christian identity. It then situates Acts of the Apostles historically and examines previous scholarship on Jewish identity and Acts before moving on to focus on the production of Jewish identity and difference in Acts 2:5–13. The book assesses how Acts of the Apostles uses the image of Jewishness constructed in Acts 2:5–13 to depict the Jewishness of Christian non-Jews in the Jerusalem council (15:1–21), and explores how Acts of the Apostles and the Salutaris Foundation inscription each uses ethnic reasoning together with civic and imperial space to produce unified identities. The book concludes that Acts of the Apostles' rhetoric of Jewish and Christian identity should be situated within the context of Roman-era cities, in which ethnic, civic, and religious identities were inseparable. Placing Acts within this broader ethnic discourse emphasizes the Jewishness of Christians, even in Acts.

Christian Non-Jews and the Polis

2020 ◽  
pp. 128-134
Author(s):  
Christopher Stroup
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Acts Of The Apostles ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Static Group

This concluding chapter summarizes the findings of this book. It argues that Acts of the Apostles' rhetoric of Jewish and Christian identity should be situated within the context of Roman-era cities, in which ethnic, civic, and religious identities were inseparable. Placing Acts within this broader ethnic discourse emphasizes the Jewishness of Christians, even in Acts. When one reads Acts with an eye to the writer's ethnic reasoning, it becomes clear that Luke did not represent Jews as a static group but instead presented Jewish identity in multiple, hybrid, and complex ways that allowed for the identification of Christian non-Jews as Jews. Luke also employs the ethnic, religious, and civic aspects of Jewish identity to privilege those Jews (and non-Jewish Jews) who follow Jesus. If Acts marks all Christians as Jews and Christian communities as Jewish communities, then the concept of “Christian universalism” should be understood as a particular form of “Jewish universalism.” The chapter then reflects on the use of ethnic reasoning and the challenge of anti-Judaism in the interpretation of Acts today.

Jews and Christians in the Polis

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Christopher Stroup
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Acts Of The Apostles ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Communal Life ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Many ◽  
The City

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the importance of ethnicity and ethnic rhetoric to the formation of ancient Christian identity. The cities of the Roman Empire were filled with gods and the citizens who honored them with festivals, processions, buildings, and benefactions. The followers of Jesus—later called Christians—lived and moved in these cities, navigating avenues lined with statues honoring various deities, organizing their days and months around the feast days that structured civic calendars, and wandering past (and through) the many temples and shrines that populated the busy urban landscape. The importance of this urban context should not be overlooked: civic, ethnic, and religious identities were intertwined with these visible, material, and practical signs of communal life, wherever one was placed within the city's bustling topography. Connections between life in the city and daily religious practices were therefore fundamental to the development of Christian identity. This book then compares the literary construction of Jewish and Christian identity in Acts of the Apostles with the material construction of various ethnic and civic identities by inhabitants of Roman-era cities. It argues that Acts represents Jewish identity as hybrid and multiple in order to situate the earliest Christians within the Greco-Roman city as members of an ideal Jewish community, which was both ancestral and accepted in the city.

scholarly journals Naming customs as an indication of assimilation: a study of first names in the two Jewish congregations of Stockholm and Malmö 1895–1921

2000 ◽  
Vol 21 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 111-122
Author(s):  
Rita Bredefeldt
Keyword(s):  
Gender Difference ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Mothers And Daughters ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Decisive Importance ◽  
Swedish Society ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Fathers And Sons

Jews in both congregations wanted to mark their will to integrate into Swedish society. In this case, the congregation milieu was not of decisive importance. We can see a drop in Jewish names shortly after the most intensive immigration period of Orthodox Eastern Jews in both Malmö and Stockholm. Non-Jewish names dominate strongly in the congregation of Stockholm because of its long history and liberal traditions. The difference between generations is a similar phenomenon in both congregations. The parents had more often Jewish names than their children and this was more so in Malmö than in Stockholm. Another similarity between the congregations is the gender difference. Fathers and sons had more often Jewish names than mothers and daughters. In this case, it seems that in the long run, the Jewish minority wanted to be much like the Swedish majority. While some still marked their Jewish identity with a Jewish name, a growing group marked its will of integration and assimilation.

scholarly journals The Making of a Canon: Impact of the Old Testament Scriptures in the Christian Canon Development

2018 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 7-21
Author(s):  
Kwaku Boamah
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Linear Process ◽  
Church Of Christ ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Christian Formation ◽  
The Third ◽  
Jewish Scriptures ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
The Church

The formation of the Christian canon was not a one day venture. Some scholars maintain it spanned from the first up to about the fourth centuries. This paper has three main parts: the first draws a linear process of canon generation, beginning from text to scripture and possibly becoming canonical. The second focuses on the creation of the Christian canon by exploring the stages and the implications of naming the canon as `Testaments`. At the heart of the study is a consideration of the use and inclusion or exclusion of the Jewish scripture by Christians as discussed by a heretic (Marcion) and three Anti-heretics (Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Tertullian) in the 2nd and/or 3rd centuries of the Roman Empire. The third part takes an example of a modern church (Church of Christ) whose reception to the Old Testament is one of skepticism. Furthermore, the level of usage of the Old Testament by the Church of Christ is key for the thesis of this paper. It is, therefore, important to assess a possible relationship between Marcion and the Church of Christ. Historical, theological and an interview are employed to explore these developments. The paper concludes that by the naming of the Christian canon and inclusion of the Jewish scriptures, the Christian identity can be described as Judeo-Christian. This description has impacted Christian formation and development a great deal from antiquity to the modern era. Marcion and his followers did not take this lightly in the first four centuries of the Christian history. On the other hand, in the nineteenth century the Church of Christ seemingly follows this example in antiquity on including the Old Testament as part of the Christian canon.

Caligula, the Church of Antioch and the Gentile Mission

2000 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Nicholas H Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Jewish Community ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Church

AbstractThis study examines such data as are available regarding the impact of the crisis which confronted Jewish communities in many parts of the Roman Empire during the reign ofGaius Caligula (3 7-41 CE). Particular attention is given to Antioch on the Orontes, and to the Christian community which emerged there and was to become a major force both in the spread of Christianity and in the conversion of Gentiles to a hitherto Jewish movement. It is argued that the crisis was a major catalyst in changing the character of the Christian church in Antioch, so that it acquired an identity distinct from that of the Jewish community. The reappraisal of eschatological expectations occasioned by the crisis led to the conviction that Gentiles must be included in the Church before the parousia of Christ.

scholarly journals Appropriation and Differentiation: Jewish Identity in Medieval Ashkenaz

AJS Review ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-63
Author(s):  
Elisheva Baumgarten
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
High Middle Ages ◽  
Christian Thought

This article discusses the ways scholars have outlined the process of Jewish adaptation (or lack of it) from their Christian surroundings in northern Europe during the High Middle Ages. Using the example of penitential fasting, the first two sections of the article describe medieval Jewish practices and some of the approaches that have been used to explain the similarity between medieval Jewish and contemporary Christian customs. The last two sections of the article suggest that in addition to looking for texts that connect between Jewish and Christian thought and beliefs behind these customs, it is useful to examine what medieval Jews and Christians saw of each other's customs living in close urban quarters. Finally, the article suggests that when shaping medieval Jewish and Christian identity, the differences emphasized in shared everyday actions and visible practice were no less important than theological distinctions. As part of the discussion throughout the article, the terminology used by scholars to describe the process of Jewish appropriation from the local surroundings is described, focusing on terms such as “influence” and “inward acculturation,” as well as “appropriation.”

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document