Fashioning Jewish identity in medieval western Christendom / Robert Chazan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chazan, Robert, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jesus Christ--Messiahship.

Jesus Christ.

Christianity--Controversial literature--History and criticism.

Christianity.

Judaism--Apologetic works--History and criticism.

Judaism.

Judaism--France, Southern--History--To 1500.

Judaism--Spain, Northern--History--To 1500.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 379 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

During the course of the twelfth century, increasing numbers of Jews migrated into dynamically developing western Christendom from Islamic lands. The vitality that attracted them also presented a challenge: Christianity - from early in its history - had proclaimed itself heir to a failed Jewish community and thus the vitality of western Christendom was both appealing and threatening to the Jewish immigrants. Indeed, western Christendom was entering a phase of intense missionising activity, some of which was directed at the long-term Jewish residents of Europe and the Jewish newcomers. This 2003 study examines the techniques of persuasion adopted by the Jewish polemicists in order to reassure their Jewish readers of the truth of Judaism and the error of Christianity. At the very deepest level, these Jewish authors sketched out for their fellow Jews a comparative portrait of Christian and Jewish societies - the former powerful but irrational and morally debased, the latter the weak but reasonable and morally elevated - urging that the obvious and sensible choice was Judaism.

Contents:

Jesus and the Jews: the Gospel accounts

Post-Gospel Christian argumentation: continuities and expansions

Pre-twelfth-century Jewish argumentation

The Jewish polemicists of southern France and northern Spain

Scriptural and alternative lines of argumentation

Biblical prophecy: messianic advent

Biblical prophecy: the Messiah reviled and vindicated

Biblical prophecy and empirical observation: displacement of the Jews

Biblical prophecy: redemption of the Jews

Biblical prophecy and empirical observation: Christian failures

Biblical prophecy: the Messiah human and divine

Human reason: the Messiah human and divine

Christian Scripture and Jesus

Comparative behaviors: Jewish achievement and Christian shortcoming

Techniques of persuasion

Fashioning identities

other and self.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 360-372) and indexes.

ISBN:

1-107-13917-1

0-521-10056-9

0-511-30855-8

0-511-07152-3

0-511-49643-5

1-280-16162-0

0-511-20580-5

0-511-12165-2

OCLC:

252483482