Ancient Roots: Judaism and Ancient Christianity
Join ASU Jewish Studies affiliate faculty members for this enlightening Zoom lecture series.
Separate preregistration required for each Zoom session.
Reading the Bible with Ancient Jews and Christians
session 1
February 1 | 7 p.m.
Blake Hartung
Religious Studies
preregistration required
How did Jews and Christians come to have Bibles that are so similar in content, but interpreted so differently? Explore how different communities of Jews in antiquity — including the Jesus movement that eventually became “Christianity” — read and reimagined their shared sacred texts. Traditions of reading the Bible ultimately helped create the distinction between “Judaism” and “Christianity,” as ancient communities debated major questions of interpretation, such as the identity of the messiah, the function of the Torah, and the meaning of Temple sacrifices. Discover how numerous points of contact and continuity between ancient Jewish and Christian readings of the Bible can make it challenging for scholars to identify particular interpretations as “Jewish” or “Christian.”
Toward Judaism and Christianity: Processes of Separation
session 2
February 8 | 7 p.m.
Francoise Mirguet
Jess Schwartz Associate Professor of Hebrew and Near Eastern Cultures
preregistration required
Different processes progressively enacted the separation between Judaism and Christianity. Far from being independent, fully formed entities from the start, Judaism and Christianity emerged through a dialogical process of differentiation and parallel formation. Explore topics such as circumcision, martyrdom, personified deity, and hostile rhetoric, and learn how communities — Jewish, Christian, and those on the margins — appropriated and reinterpreted previously co-existing practices and beliefs, to develop them into competing markers of identity.
Identities and Categories in Jewish Antiquity
session 3
February 15 | 7 p.m.
Tim Langille
Religious Studies
preregistration required
Jew. Judean. Ethnos. Greek. Gentile. Christian. What did these terms and categories of mean from the Hellenistic period 323 BCE–63 BCE to the emergence of the Rabbinic period 200 CE? Learn about the ongoing academic debates about these categories, and explore ways in which these categories overlap, intersect, and shape each other.