Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism

Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism

by Paula Fredriksen
Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism

Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism

by Paula Fredriksen

eBook

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Overview

Now in paperback with a new postscript, this updated edition of Paula Fredriksen’s critically acclaimed Augustine and the Jews traces the social and intellectual forces that led to the development of Christian anti-Judaism and shows how and why Augustine challenged this tradition.

Drawing us into the life, times, and thought of Augustine of Hippo (396–430), Fredriksen focuses on the period of astounding creativity that led to his new understanding of Paul and to his great classic, The Confessions.  She shows how Augustine’s struggle to read the Bible led him to a new theological vision, one that countered the anti-Judaism not only of his Manichaean opponents but also of his own church. The Christian Empire, Augustine held, was right to ban paganism and to coerce heretics. But the source of ancient Jewish scripture and current Jewish practice, he argued, was the very same as that of the New Testament and of the church—namely, God himself. Accordingly, he urged, Jews were to be left alone. Conceived as a vividly original way to defend Christian ideas about Jesus and about the Old Testament, Augustine’s theological innovation survived the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and it ultimately served to protect Jewish lives against the brutality of medieval crusades.

Augustine and the Jews sheds new light on the origins of Christian anti-Semitism and, through Augustine, opens a path toward better understanding between two of the world’s great religions.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780300172508
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publication date: 10/12/2010
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

Paula Fredriksen is the Aurelio Professor of Scripture Emerita at Boston University and professor of religion at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Besides Augustine on Romans, her translation of Augustine’s early works on Paul, she has authored From Jesus to Christ, which was the basis of a popular Frontline documentary, and Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, which won a 1999 National Jewish Book Award. She divides her time between Boston and Jerusalem.

Table of Contents

Prologue xi

Part 1 The Legacy of Alexander

1 Gods and Their Humans 3

2 Gods and the One God 16

3 Paideia: Pagan, Jewish, Christian 41

4 Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Mediterranean City 79

Part 2 The Prodigal Son

5 The Heretic 105

6 The Sojourner 122

7 The Convert 155

8 The Biblical Theologian 190

Part 3 God and Israel

9 The War of Words 213

10 The Redemption of the Flesh 235

11 The Mark of Cain 260

12 "Slay Them Not ..." 290

Epilogue 353

Postscript to the Yale Edition 367

Acknowledgments 376

Time Line 381

Chronology of Augustine's Life and Work 383

Notes 385

Primary Bibliography 437

Secondary Bibliography 443

Indexes

Names and Places 469

Ancient Documents and Authors 477

Subjects 493

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