Parting of the Ways: The Separation of Judaism and Christianity

Catalog description

Jesus may have been Jewish, but for many centuries, Jews and Christians alike have considered their religions and their self-identifications to be mutually exclusive. When, why and how did these differences become definitive? Some modern scholars argue that "the ways parted early": others contend that they never parted at all! We focus on the period before Christianity becomes the official religion of the Roman Empire (late 4th century C.E.), with attention to persons in antiquity who contested these distinctions, and even to some in our own time ("Hebrew Christians," "Messianic Jews," and "Jews for Jesus"). Enrollment limited to 20.