Experience From The Maccabees To The Mishnah Published By Shaye J.D. Cohen Exhibited In Leaflet

book of!! :
Well written, well organized, Helt klart den bedste bog på markedet om tidlig jødedom, Selvfølgelig har den mangler, men det giver en meget fyldestgørende analyse af den tidlige jødedom! Some would say that they can't appreciate a book that they've been assigned to read.
This was the first book that was assigned to me in a college course on the New Testament, I must say, though, that I've thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, The author, Shaye J. D. Cohen, describes in in a readable way the history of second temple Judaism, and its impact on the development of early Christianity, The book is written from a historical perspective only, and the author takes pains not to insert comments that might indicate a sectarian or religious bias, Every serious student of the development of early Christianity should know something about second temple Judaism, and this book provides a good foundation upon which further studies can be pursued.

An excellent, easily readable survey of this period, complete with generous footnotes and recommended resources for further study, Super dry. Didn't find it very interesting, It did help me understand some things though, It's a helpful resource dating aside, Probably better out there.
a good introduction to the time period, some of it may be a little dated, but is a straightup history for people who aren't familiar,
Read for class, generally a snoozefest but also taught me interesting stuff In this new edition of a bestselling

classic, Shaye Cohen offers a thorough analysis of Judaism's development from the early years of the Roman Empire to the formative period of rabbinic Judaism.
Cohen's synthesis of religion, literature, and history offers deep insight into the nature of Judaism at this key period, including the relationship between Jews and Gentiles, the function of Jewish religion in the larger community, and the development of normative Judaism and other Jewish sects.
In addition, Cohen provides clear explanations concerning the formation of the biblical canon and the roots of rabbinic Judaism, Now completely updated and revised, this book remains the clearest introduction to the era that shaped Judaism and provided the context for early Christianity,

The Library of Early Christianity is a series of eight outstanding books exploring the Jewish and GrecoRoman contexts in which the New Testament developed, More a textbook than a monographwhich does not stop it from advancing an argument, The major change in the current edition is a new, concluding chapter on the "parting of the ways" between Jews and Christians, I cannot imagine how the prior editions would read, as the book builds thematically toward that chapter, Cohen's take, in brief, is that the ways did not part, because they never ran together in the first place, As soon as we can identify a Christian church from documentary or material evidence, it did not mix with Jewish communities in "the land of Israel" or in the diaspora.
This telos, in retrospect, governs his prior account of Jewish practice, social organization, and belief,

Likewise, this telos is a function of the From the Maccabees to the Mishnah's audience, The primary constituency for a course in "Second Temple Judaism" let alone "The Jewish Background to the New Testament" is, if not Christian, then at least conditioned by prior interest in the New Testament or Christian origins.
I should add, in this connection, that my training is in Christian systematic theology, so I am very much a part of this same audience,

Any American Jew writing for Christians knows what questions are likely to interest them, Such is the balance of power, In my judgment, Cohen assesses the New Testament, and Christian evidence on the period more generally, scrupulously and even generously: He treats Jesus as a healer, speaks of "postresurrection" communities, and considers Paul a very strange Jew, but also a significant Jewish writer of the period and a source of evidence for Jewish language and internal politics.
There is refreshingly little polemic here, at least on the surface where a nonspecialist would notice it, A prior reviewer contrasts Cohen's account to that of N, T. Wright, which is frankly apologetic: Quite so,

Much of this material was familiar to me in other ways, but there was still plenty to learn from Cohen's presentation, and not only from his argument.
Some takeawaysperhaps not new to you, but new to me:

The only Jewish writer who ever selfidentified as a Pharisee was Paul, and then of course as an exPharisee.
That name which seems to come from a word for "separation" functioned to name a party, clearly, but that party's members never identified with it, either at the time or in retrospect.
The word does not even appear in the Mishnah!
Likewise with Sadducee, a group that leaves no written testimony at all, One clue: The root of the word seems to be Zadok, a priestly lineage also claimed at Qumran! Now I want to read athc, historical novel, à la BenHur, about a fallingout of aristocratic priestly brothers in the late Hasmonean period,
The word politeuma, cf, Phil:"our politeuma is in heaven", referred to autonomous ethnic communities within Greek cities, such as those of diaspora Jews, The exegetical implications are not yet clear to me, and it can simply mean "citizenship" in a broader sense, but now I'm curious whether NT commentators have picked up on the diasporic specificity here, as Paul certainly would have done.


Cohen consistently uses this language as the counterpoint to the diaspora, He likewise includes, in his preface, a protest against the Presbyterian Church USA's position on the IsraelPalestine conflict, which he believes to reflect an "obsession with the sins of Israel" on the part of Christians.
In case any reader doesn't know: The From the Maccabees to the Mishnah's publisher is affiliated with the PCUSA, I appreciated his forthrightness, while still finding the apologetic undercurrent a bit distracting, YMMV. Very good book, but not organized usefully for my classes, I'm teaching a Jewish history course going from the lateth century BCE through therd century CE, or so, and I teach it chronologically, Because this book is organized thematically, I might use a chapter but it doesn't work as a main textbook for the course, This is a shame, because as a reader, I much prefer this to the textbook that I am using for that class, The book describes itself as an introduction to theor so years of Jewish history between the Maccabees to the Mishnah, For most people what is found in this book should be more than sufficient to inform and revise many commonly held assumptions about Jews, Judaism: their history, culture, society, religion, and politics during that time.


Chapter Eight is new in this Third Edition, This chapter discusses the "separation" that took place between Judaism and Christianity, What the chapter reveals is that this was a lengthy process and not nearly as clearcut as it has been so frequently presented, In fact in some cases it is difficult to see that a "separation" actually took place since because there was no common communion between the two groups, In other cases a separation occurred, not because there was an explicit forcing out of Christianity from Judaism, but because it simply became difficult to maintain social connections when social practices became so different.
These and other possibilities are discussed,

The end of the book includes extensive bibliography and suggestions for further study for those who desire to go beyond this "introduction, "

Writing as a lifelong Christian and as a pastor, this book opened my eyes to ways of thinking about the period of the gospels and the apostles in new ways.
The relationships between Jesus, the apostles, the various Jewish sects, the controversies, the intent of the New Testament writings, etc, are far more complicated than is typically heard in Christian settings, The way Christians interpret and discuss Jews and Judaism of the period needs to become more nuanced and charitable, For example, the picture of Pharisees in the gospels are more stereotypes and caricatures than what history reveals as reality of the period, What seems to have happened is that later Christian attitudes crept into the preserved writings and their interpretations, which have been handed down as "true traditions" ever since, This book provides a needed corrective to the "jaundiced" tradition that Christians have received over the centuries and millennia,

I recommend this book to all pastors, As pastors we need to stop perpetuating inaccurate histories and traditions when accurate ones are available, Yes, doing so will challenge us in how to incorporate and present new understandings, and it will challenge our congregations,

Based on ARC via NetGalley, .