The Scriptures of Israel in Jewish and Christian Tradition is a collection of studies in honour of Professor Maarten J.J. Menken (Tilburg/Utrecht) and illustrates the rich diversity of approaches to biblical interpretation at the beginning of the Common Era. An international team of specialists share their insights on such topics as the availability of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts, Jewish and Christian hermeneutics, notions of authority and inspiration and even a study of inscriptions. Each in its own way demonstrates that the relationship between text and tradition, culture and belief is always complex.

The studies that make up this book explore in what ways Israel's sacred tradition developed into canonical scripture and in what ways this sacred tradition was interpreted in early Judaism and Christianity. This collection will stimulate continuing investigation into the growth and interpretation of scripture in the context of the Jewish and Christian communities of faith, and will serve well as a reader for graduate courses with its focus on early exegesis and intertextuality.

This is the fourth volume in the series of collaborations between the Department of Bible in Tel Aviv University, Israel, and the Faculty of Theology in the University of the Ruhr, Bochum, Germany. This symposium, held in Bochum in 1995, discussed a topic important for both communities of believers, starting with the Bible and tracking its role through the different stages of the respective tradition-histories. This time the theme was eschatology. The participants engaged in a lively discussion (from the Jewish side) on messianism and Zionism, Qumran, Mishnah and Kabbalah, and (from the Christian side) on the Bible, recent Protestant ethics and systematic theology. The volume concludes with the report of a panel discussion on the essence of eschatology in Jewish and Christian thinking: is it a spiritualized idea or a material expectation for the world?

Richard P. McBrien -- Ancient Scripture in the modern world / Krister Stendahl.

Religious traditions are channeled to new audiences by textual markers, which inform their understanding and influence. Such markers are signs of contextualisation which belong to the paratext of a tradition: textual elements that do not belong to the core text itself but belong to their embedding and as such affect their reception. Alternatively, some texts function purposely in tandem with another text, and cannot be understood without that text. While the second text informs the way the first one is being understood, it can hardly function independently. The discussions include the arrangement of textual blocks in the Hebrew Bible; how the oral transmission of Jewish Aramaic Bible translations had to be recited as a counterpoint to the Hebrew chant; how synagogue poetry presupposes the channels of liturgical instruction; how the Talmud can be perceived as a translation of Mishnah; how the presence of paratextual elements such as annotations and prefaces influenced the Index Librorum Prohibitorum concerning 16th century Bibles; the function of paratext and scope for modern Bible translations. This volume will tentatively explore the wide range of paratext and megatext as devices of channeling religious traditions.

Preliminary Material /Elias Bickerman -- THE DATE OF THE TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS /Elias Bickerman -- UNE QUESTION D' AUTHENTICITÉ : LES PRIVILÈGES JUIFS /Elias Bickerman -- LA CHARTE SÉLEUCIDE DE JÉRUSALEM /Elias Bickerman -- UNE PROCLAMATION SÉLEUCIDE RELATIVE AU TEMPLE DE JÉRUSALEM /Elias Bickerman -- UN DOCUMENT RELATIF A LA PERSÉCUTION D' ANTIOCH OS IV ÉPIPHANE /Elias Bickerman -- EIN JÜDISCHER FESTBRIEF VOM JAHRE 124 volumes Chr. (II Macc. 1, 1-9) /Elias Bickerman -- HÉLIODORE AU TEMPLE DE JÉRUSALEM /Elias Bickerman -- LES MACCABÉES DE MALALAS /Elias Bickerman -- THE WARNING INSCRIPTIONS OF HEROD'S TEMPLE /Elias Bickerman -- RITUALMORD UND ESELSKULT: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte antiker Publizistik /Elias Bickerman -- LA CHAÎNE DE LA TRADITION PHARISIENNE /Elias Bickerman -- THE MAXIM OF ANTIGONUS OF SOCHO /Elias Bickerman -- THE CIVIC PRAYER FOR JERUSALEM /Elias Bickerman -- BÉNÉDICTION ET PRIÈRE /Elias Bickerman -- THE ALTARS OF GENTILES A NOTE ON THE JEWISH “IUS SACRUM” /Elias Bickerman -- THE JEWISH HISTORIAN DEMETRIOS /Elias Bickerman -- INDEX OF SUBJECTS /Elias Bickerman.

Marshalling previously untapped Christian materials, Bar-Asher Siegal offers radically new insights into Talmudic stories about Scriptural debates with Christian heretics.

This book provides an introductory guide to key themes articulated in conciliar, papal, and curial statements of the Catholic Church as part of its ongoing dialogue and friendship with the Jewish people. Themes include the significance of Jesus’s identity as a faithful Jew; the Church’s permanent link with the mystery of Israel; the continuing validity of the “unrevoked” Jewish covenant; Scripture as a source of both unity and division between Christians and Jews; appreciation of Judaism as a living tradition; the problem of supersessionism and anti-Jewish prejudice in biblical interpretation; Antisemitism; Mission; the significance of the Land.

Between 1971 and 1996 the late John Howard Yoder (1927-1997) wrote a series of ten essays revisiting the Jewish-Christian schism in which he argued that, properly understood, Jesus did not reject Judaism, Judaism did not reject Jesus, and the Apostle Paul’s universal mandate for the salvation of the nations is best understood not as a product of Hellenization, but rather in the context of his Jewish heritage. This posthumous collection of essays is arguably his most ambitious project and displays Yoder’s original thesis that the Jewish-Christian schism did not have to be. Originally published in 2003 by SCM Press and Eerdmans.

In Jewish, Christian, and Classical Exegetical Traditions in Jerome’s Translation of the Book of Exodus: Translation Technique and the Vulgate, Matthew Kraus offers a layered understanding of Jerome’s translation of biblical narrative, poetry, and law from Hebrew to Latin. Usually seen as a tool for textual criticism, when read as a work of literature, the Vulgate reflects a Late Antique conception of Hebrew grammar, critical use of Greek biblical traditions, rabbinic influence, Christian interpretation, and Classical style and motifs. Instead of typically treating the text of the Vulgate and Jerome himself separately, Matthew Kraus uncovers Late Antiquity in the many facets of the translator at work—grammarian, biblical exegete, Septuagint scholar, Christian intellectual, rabbinic correspondent, and devotee of Classical literature.