Law And Ethics In Early Judaism And The New Testament

Pious Jews of the Second Temple period sought to conform their lives to Torah, the law God had given Israel. Their different sects disagreed, however, on how to interpret particular laws and even on the question of who had the authority to interpret them. Jesus and his earliest followers, while focusing primarily on what they believed God was doing in their own day, were repeatedly confronted with issues raised by its relation to God's prior revelation in Torah. This volume contains studies by Stephen Westerholm devoted to the meaning and place of Torah in Early Judaism as well as to New Testament understandings, particularly those of the gospels and Pauline literature. Attention is also given to the "New Perspective on Paul," to recent discussions of justification and Paul's relation to Judaism, and to aspects of the transmission of Jesus tradition among his earliest followers.

Explores the relationship between the Mosaic law and early Christian ethics In this volume thirteen respected scholars explore the relationship between the Mosaic law and early Christian ethics, examining early Christian appropriation of the Torah and looking at ways in which the law continued to serve as an ethical reference point for Christ-believers -- whether or not they thought Torah observance was essential. These noteworthy essays compare differences in interpretation and application of the law between Christians and non-Christian Jews; investigate ways in which Torah-inspired ethical practices helped Christ-believing communities articulate their distinct identities and social responsibilities; and look at how presentations of the law in early Christian literature might inform Christian social and ethical practices today. Posing a unified set of questions to a diverse range of texts, Torah Ethics and Early Christian Identity will stimulate new thinking about a complex phenomenon commonly overlooked by scholars and church leaders alike.

Why did the Gentile church keep Old Testament commandments about sex and idolatry, but disregard many others, like those about food or ritual purity? If there were any binding norms, what made them so, and on what basis were they articulated?In this important study, Markus Bockmuehl approaches such questions by examining the halakhic (Jewish legal) rationale behind the ethics of Jesus, Paul and the early Christians. He offers fresh and often unexpected answers based on careful biblical and historical study. His arguments have far-reaching implications not only for the study of the New Testament, but more broadly for the relationship between Christianity and Judaism.

In Ethics and the New Testament, the author applies strict critical standards to the Gospels, epistles and other writings, which he examines in historical perspective. His explanation of contemporary attitudesincluding gnosticismhelps to clarify the str

This is a completely revised and expanded edition of a classic text. Drawing on recent work on legal and didactic material and including more literary interpretation, Blenkinsopp traces the course of two related key traditions--law and wisdom--throughout the history of Israel in the biblicalperiod. He demonstrates their essential lines of continuity with classical Jewish thought and early Christian theology.

In The Authority of Law in the Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism, Vroom tracks the emergence of legal obligation in early Judaism. He draws from legal theory to develop a means of identifying instances in which ancient interpreters treated a legal text as a source of binding obligation.

I. The ethics of non-retaliation in early Judaism -- II. The ethics of non-retaliation in the New Testament.

Ethics in Ancient Israel is a study of ethical thinking in ancient Israel from around the eighth to the second century BC. The evidence for this consists primarily of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible and Apocrypha, but also other ancient Jewish writings such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and various anonymous and pseudonymous texts from shortly before the New Testament period. Professor John Barton argues that there were several models for thinking about ethics, including a 'divine command' theory, something approximating to natural law, a virtue ethic, and a belief in human custom and convention. Moreover, he examines ideas of reward and punishment, purity and impurity, the status of moral agents and patients, imitation of God, and the image of God in humanity. Barton maintains that ethical thinking can be found not only in laws but also in the wisdom literature, in the Psalms, and in narrative texts. There is much interaction with recent scholarship in both English and German. The book features discussion of comparative material from other ancient Near Eastern cultures and a chapter on short summaries of moral teaching, such as the Ten Commandments. This innovative work should be of interest to those concerned with the interpretation of the Old Testament but also to students of ethics.