The lecture is a part of

Jews and Christians through the Centuries: Communities in Conflict and Contact

A Series from the National Library of Israel

In Roman antiquity, gods and humans clustered in family groups. Pagans often saw their own ethnic group, or at least their rulers, as descended from a sexual union between a human ancestor and a god; Jews used the language of family and lineage to describe their relationship with their own god (as Israel’s “father” or “husband”). What modern people think of as “religion” ancient people saw as a group-defining patrimony. People were born into their relationship—thus, into their ritual and ethical obligations—to their gods. The first generation of the Jesus movement, by reaching out to non-Jews while promoting exclusive devotion to the god of Israel, disrupted this genealogical/patrilineal model of divine/human relations. Eventually, different interpretations of the figure of Jesus as God’s messiah (christos in Greek) gave birth to a wide variety of gentile movements who argued with each other—and with Jews both within the movement and outside of it—on the correct way to relate to the high god who was the father of Christ. By the fourth century, beginning with Constantine, Roman power politics complicated—and simplified—these debates. The application of Roman state coercive force was brought to bear, first, on other Christians (“heretics”), then on traditionalists (“pagans”), and finally, even on the source of the imperial church’s Old Testament scriptures, coercion against Jews. Our time together traces the arc of these social and religious developments.

Paula Fredriksen, Aurelio Professor of Scripture emerita, Boston University; Distinguished Visiting Professor of Comparative Religion, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Paula Fredriksen earned her doctorate in comparative religions at Princeton University (1979), and holds three honorary doctorates in religion or theology from institutions in the US (Iona), Sweden (Lund), and the Israel (Hebrew University). She has written seven books and over 100 articles on pagan-Jewish-Christian relations in Mediterranean Antiquity. Her two most recent monographs, Paul. The Pagans’ Apostle (winner of the 2018 award for Best Prose from the American Publishers Association) and When Christians Were Jews, place the Jesus movement’s Jewish messianic message within the wider world of ancient Mediterranean culture, politics, and power.

Sunday, 2 January, 8 pm Israel / 7 pm CET / 6 pm UK / 1 pm EST

‍

The lecture is a part of

Jews and Christians through the Centuries: Communities in Conflict and Contact

A Series from the National Library of Israel

In Roman antiquity, gods and humans clustered in family groups. Pagans often saw their own ethnic group, or at least their rulers, as descended from a sexual union between a human ancestor and a god; Jews used the language of family and lineage to describe their relationship with their own god (as Israel’s “father” or “husband”). What modern people think of as “religion” ancient people saw as a group-defining patrimony. People were born into their relationship—thus, into their ritual and ethical obligations—to their gods. The first generation of the Jesus movement, by reaching out to non-Jews while promoting exclusive devotion to the god of Israel, disrupted this genealogical/patrilineal model of divine/human relations. Eventually, different interpretations of the figure of Jesus as God’s messiah (christos in Greek) gave birth to a wide variety of gentile movements who argued with each other—and with Jews both within the movement and outside of it—on the correct way to relate to the high god who was the father of Christ. By the fourth century, beginning with Constantine, Roman power politics complicated—and simplified—these debates. The application of Roman state coercive force was brought to bear, first, on other Christians (“heretics”), then on traditionalists (“pagans”), and finally, even on the source of the imperial church’s Old Testament scriptures, coercion against Jews. Our time together traces the arc of these social and religious developments.

Paula Fredriksen, Aurelio Professor of Scripture emerita, Boston University; Distinguished Visiting Professor of Comparative Religion, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Paula Fredriksen earned her doctorate in comparative religions at Princeton University (1979), and holds three honorary doctorates in religion or theology from institutions in the US (Iona), Sweden (Lund), and the Israel (Hebrew University). She has written seven books and over 100 articles on pagan-Jewish-Christian relations in Mediterranean Antiquity. Her two most recent monographs, Paul. The Pagans’ Apostle (winner of the 2018 award for Best Prose from the American Publishers Association) and When Christians Were Jews, place the Jesus movement’s Jewish messianic message within the wider world of ancient Mediterranean culture, politics, and power.

Sunday, 2 January, 8 pm Israel / 7 pm CET / 6 pm UK / 1 pm EST

‍