Ancient Roots: Judaism and Ancient Christianity - part 1
Reading the Bible with Ancient Jews and Christians
Blake Hartung
Religious Studies, Arizona State University
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.”
