The Jewish Christian Encounter In Medieval Preaching

This book explores the complexity of preaching as a phenomenon in the medieval Jewish-Christian encounter. This was not only an "encounter" as physical meeting or confrontation (such as the forced attendance of Jews at Christian sermons that took place across Europe), but also an "imaginary" or theological encounter in which Jews remained a figure from a distant constructed time and place who served only to underline and verify Christian teachings. Contributors also explore the Jewish response to Christian anti-Jewish preaching in their own preaching and religious instruction.

It is a widespread idea that the roots of the Christian sermon can be found in the Jewish derasha. But the story of the interrelation of the two homiletical traditions, Jewish and Christian, from New Testament times to the present day is still untold. Can homiletical encounters be registered? Is there a common homiletical history - not only in the modern era, but also in rabbinic times and in the Middle Ages? Which current developments affect Jewish and Christian preaching today, in the 21st century? And, most important, what consequences may result from this mutual perception of Jewish and Christian homiletics for homiletical research and the practice of preaching? This book offers the papers of the first international conference (Bamberg, Germany, 6th to 8th March 2007) which brought together Jewish and Christian scholars to discuss Jewish and Christian homiletics in their historical development and relationship and to sketch out common homiletical projects.

This anthology of largely unknown medieval and early modern Jewish sermons provides an introduction to a neglected area of Jewish creativity, one that gives insights into the central intellectual issues, spiritual movements, and communal centers during six critical centuries of Jewish experience. The sermons, presented here in their entirety, have been translated, annotated, and introduced by Marc Saperstein, who also provides a discussion of the historical background of the sermons, their context, and their relationship to Hebrew literature. "A scholarly masterpiece and an intellectual tour de force that must be read by anybody with a serious interest in Jewish studies or the art of preaching."--Howard Adelman, Shofar "This splendid and interesting collection, a description true of all the Yale Judaica, is richly documented."--Thomas L. Shaffer, Christian Legal Society Quarterly "A work of profound scholarship, it is also a pleasure to read."--Choice "Jewish Preaching offers the reader an exceptional overview of many different and fascinating aspects of Jewish history, culture and theology."--Yaakov Ort, Wellsprings "Marc Saperstein's careful and detailed translations and annotations, and his cogent introductory essay, are examples of scholarship at its highest level, and should serve to secure the place of this body of literature in the field of Jewish studies."--Present Tense/Joel H. Caviour Literary Award, 1990 "A goundbreaking work of exquisite scholarship that truly points the way for others to follow."--David E. Fass, American Rabbi Winner of the 1990 National Jewish Book Award in the cateogry of Jewish Thought given by the Jewish Book Council

This volume of essays concentrates on the effects of preaching in late medieval and early modern Europe, particularly through the concept of charisma, a term introduced into the discussion of religion and politics by Max Weber. Used by Weber, the term indicates the power of a person to move others to action, to animate and mobilize them. The late medieval and early modern periods witnessed the emergence of preachers who became powerful public figures central to the mobilization of populations towards religious reform or crusades. Such preachers were also enmeshed in civic life and the life of courts. Super-preachers like Bernardino of Siena and John of Capistrano shaped opinion on a wide range of issues: the ethics of business, marriage and gender relations, attitudes towards minorities, the poor and social responsibility, as well as the role of kings and other rulers in society. Preaching events were the mass media of the day, and in their wake could follow pogrom, lay revival, crusade, peace movement, or reconciliation within a faction-riven city. The power of these events was great and not merely confined to the Christian community. This volume introduces for the first time a comparative dimension which looks at the theme of charisma and religious authority in the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim preaching traditions.

This volume explores the sermons and activities of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim preachers who shaped ideas about religious and gendered identities and alterity throughout the Mediterranean and northern Europe. Preachers of all three traditions played a decisive role in defining the religious identities of their communities, often in response to negative images projected onto religious others. The studies cover a broad spectrum of premodern Europe and the Mediterranean and address the ways that preaching reflects transcultural contacts as well as social, intellectual, and hermeneutical encounters among diverse societies and religious communities. The essays are divided into three themes. Part One, 'Religious and Gendered Identities and Alterities, ' examines how religious identity is inflected by the presence or the 'absent presence' of religious others and interrogates how gender informs religious identity, piety, and alterity. The chapters in Part Two, 'Hermeneutical Identities, Alterities, and Transcultural Relations in Christian and Jewish Preaching', offer contrasting interpretations of the impact of anti-Judaism in Christian preaching and analyse Jewish responses to Christian polemic. Part Three, 'Muslim and Christian Orators and Inter-faith Encounters, ' explores these encounters from the dual perspectives of Crusade and military conflict and interreligious dialogue, disputation, and proselytization. The volume positions itself at the intellectual crossroads between comparative medieval sermons studies and transcultural Mediterranean and European studies. Its treatment of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim preaching, together with its emphasis on the Iberian Peninsula, will broaden and deepen the scope of medieval sermon studie

This collection takes a new approach to understanding religious plurality in the Iberian Peninsula and its Mediterranean and northern European contexts. Focusing on polemics—works that attack or refute the beliefs of religious Others—this volume aims to challenge the problematic characterization of Iberian Jews, Muslims, and Christians as homogeneous groups. From the high Middle Ages to the end of the seventeenth century, Christian efforts to convert groups of Jews and Muslims, Muslim efforts to convert Christians and Jews, and the defensive efforts of these communities to keep their members within the faiths led to the production of numerous polemics. This volume brings together a wide variety of case studies that expose how the current historiographical focus on the three religious communities as allegedly homogeneous groups obscures the diversity within the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities as well as the growing ranks of skeptics and outright unbelievers. Featuring contributions from a range of academic disciplines, this paradigm-shifting book sheds new light on the cultural and intellectual dynamics of the conflicts that marked relations among these religious communities in the Iberian Peninsula and beyond. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Antoni Biosca i Bas, Thomas E. Burman, Mònica Colominas Aparicio, John Dagenais, Óscar de la Cruz, Borja Franco Llopis, Linda G. Jones, Daniel J. Lasker, Davide Scotto, Teresa Soto, Ryan Szpiech, Pieter Sjoerd van Koningsveld, and Carsten Wilke.