検索キーワード： 著者 "Juan Marcos Bejarano Gutierrez" すべてのカテゴリー

In 2006, I was attending several week-long classes at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago. One of the classes was titled “Who is a Jew?” and was taught by my doctoral advisor, Rabbi Dr. Byron Sherwin, of blessed memory. The course discussed biblical, rabbinic, medieval, and modern perspectives on the question. As Rabbi Sherwin was accustomed to doing, he typically included unusual cases for us to consider. Decades before, a student at the Spertus Institute had stirred some controversy.

The relationship between Judaism and Christianity has been acrimonious throughout most of history. Often confronted with persecution, with arguments of Divine rejection, and with religious practices and beliefs that appeared pagan and even idolatrous to them, most rabbis viewed Christianity negatively. However, quite surprisingly, not all rabbis viewed Christianity in this light.

This story tells the tale of a boy with an Israelite father and a Canaanite mother. A young boy is caught between two worlds during the time of Samuel the Seer. In the first volume, he is captured by the Sea Peoples during a battle; he is enslaved and taken to the Philistine stronghold of Gath where he meets two young girls who will shape his future. All the while, he remembers his friend, a beautiful Canaanite girl, and wonders whether he will ever see her or his parents again. The journey continues in this volume.

Many years ago, in a lecture on the creation of the Mishnah, the Orthodox Jewish historian, Rabbi Berel Wein discussed the rise of early Christianity as a historical and theological backdrop. He mentioned that this era is of particular importance to Jews because of the complicated and tragic relationship between Jews and Christians over the centuries. He referred to Joseph Klausner, the famed Jewish professor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who in the earlier part of the 20th century, had authored several works on early Christianity from a Jewish standpoint.

Three events transpired in 1492 in the Iberian Peninsula, which had tremendous ramifications for years to come. The first was the conquest of Granada, i.e., the last Muslim stronghold, by Castilian and Aragonese forces. The victory ended eight hundred years of Islam-ic rule. The conquest of Granada eventually also led to the conversions of many Muslims to Christianity, the phenomenon of Crypto-Islam, and the eventual expulsion of the descendants of these converts in 1609.

Few Biblical figures are as intriguing and mysterious as Enoch. He is mentioned only a few times in the canonical Hebrew Bible, but the impact of his story went on to affect the theology of many books written during the Second Temple Era. It also set the foundation for the development of many of the ideas found in the early Christian movement. Enoch’s importance continued beyond the destruction of the Temple and survived in a new form in later rabbinic tradition. Discover the mystery of Enoch, and the fascinating impact it had on the development of Judaism and Christianity.

The Jewish sect which ascribed Jesus the title of Messiah was eventually transformed into a non-Jewish movement wholly separated from its Jewish context. The transformation was not instantaneous, and there were deviating or at the least parallel streams of Jesus supporters early on. A critical mistake which has been made, in my opinion, is the assumption that the Jesus movement was uniform even among its early Jewish followers. Analyzing the original movement(s) in the first centuries of the Common Era can reveal how the schism between Judaism and Christianity evolved.

Why should any Jew in their right mind wish to consider or perhaps reconsider, Christianity from a different vantage point? It is a fair question. There are potentially many reasons. Intellectual honesty is an important one. This book seeks to explore alternative approaches to Christianity that permit Jews to consider it as something else besides idolatry without abandoning traditional Jewish theology.

Is there a type of thinking that can be characterized as Jewish? If so, what is the difference between the Jewish thought and non-Jewish thinking? Does the Bible reflect a type of thinking? Is it linear? Does it correspond to Platonic or Aristotelian thought? How does rabbinic logic work? Are there polarities in the Bible? Discover this and much more in this fascinating aspect of Judaism.

The history of Jews in Spain and Portugal spans more than 1,000 years. By most measures, it is even longer than the large-scale settlement of Jews in the land of Israel, which was interrupted several times in Jewish history. Legends ascribe the arrival of the earliest settlers to the days of the biblical prophet Obadiah, but archeologically speaking, the first record of Jews is much later.

Despite significant improvement in interfaith dialogue in some quarters between Christians and Jews, many Christians still maintain theological positions that are inimical to fundamental Jewish beliefs, and consequently, to the Jewish people. The essential perspective that sets the tone for Christian attitudes toward Jews and Judaism is their theological view of the Torah.

The link between the religion of biblical Israel and the religion we now identify as rabbinic Judaism is often controversial. The controversy is often linked to theological agendas rather than an honest approach to Israel’s history. The religion of ancient Israel is linked to rabbinic Judaism is many ways. The two are linked by a shared belief in the one supreme God who created the world, chose the the Jewish people to be His people.

Chapter One, titled The Rise of the Converso Problem, provides the historical context for the mass conversions of 1391. It will do so by providing a survey of important events in the history of Iberian Jewry from the Late Roman Period until the massacres of 1391. The second chapter, titled Christian Attitudes Towards Conversos, surveys the range of Christian views towards Conversos during the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries.

In 1665-1666 the messianic movement of Sabbatai Zevi (also written as Shabbetai Zevi, Shabbetai Tzvi, Shabtai Sevi, etc.) spread like wildfire throughout the Jewish communities of the Mediterranean and northern and western Europe. Some communities were so caught up in the frenzy that they changed their liturgy to reflect what they believed to be in the impending declaration of the messianic age.