Amy-Jill Levine - The Jewish Annotated New Testament

THE JEWISH ANNOTATED NEW TESTAMENT

New Revised Standard Version

THE JEWISH ANNOTATED NEW TESTAMENT

New Revised Standard Version Bible Translation

Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler

Editors

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New Revised Standard Version Bible copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.

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Portions of the informational annotations for Luke and 2 Corinthians are based on those in The New Oxford Annotated Bible, fourth edition. Copyright 2010 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Used by permission.
Part of the essay Jewish History, 331 BCE 135 CE is adapted from Introduction to the Apocrypha in The Oxford Bible Commentary. Copyright 2001 by Oxford University Press. Used by permission.

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EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Alan J. Avery-Peck The Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians

Herbert Basser The Letter of James

Daniel Boyarin Logos, A Jewish Word: Johns Prologue as Midrash

Marc Zvi Brettler, Editor The New Testament between the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and Rabbinic Literature

Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus The Third Letter of John

Shaye J. D. Cohen The Letter of Paul to the Galatians; Judaism and Jewishness; Josephus

Michael Cook The Letter of Paul to the Philippians

Pamela Eisenbaum The Letter to the Hebrews

Michael Fagenblat The Concept of Neighbor in Jewish and Christian Ethics

Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert Judaizers, Jewish Christians, and Others

David Frankfurter The Revelation to John

David M. Freidenreich Food and Table Fellowship

Julie Galambush The Second Letter of John

Aaron M. Gale The Gospel According to Matthew

Joshua D. Garroway Ioudaios

Barbara Geller The Letter of Paul to Philemon

Gary Gilbert The Acts of the Apostles

Martin Goodman Jewish History, 331 BCE135 CE

Leonard Greenspoon The Septuagint

Michael R. Greenwald The Second Letter of Peter; The Canon of the New Testament

Adam Gregerman The Second Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians

Maxine Grossman The Letter of Paul to the Ephesians; The Dead Sea Scrolls

Susannah Heschel Jesus in Modern Jewish Thought

Martha Himmelfarb Afterlife and Resurrection

Tal Ilan The Second Letter of Paul to Timothy

Andrew S. Jacobs The Letter of Jude

Jonathan Klawans The Law

Naomi Koltun-Fromm The First Letter of Paul to Timothy

Jennifer L. Koosed The Letter of Paul to Titus

Ross S. Kraemer Jewish Family Life in the First Century CE

Shira Lander The First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians

Daniel R. Langton Paul in Jewish Thought

Rebecca Lesses Divine Beings

David B. Levenson Messianic Movements

Amy-Jill Levine, Editor The Gospel According to Luke; Bearing False Witness: Common Errors Made about Early Judaism

Lee I. Levine The Synagogue

Martin Lockshin Jesus in Medieval Jewish Tradition

Michele Murray The First Letter of John

Mark D. Nanos The Letter of Paul to the Romans; Paul and Judaism

Adele Reinhartz The Gospel According to John

David Fox Sandmel The First Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians

David Satran Philo of Alexandria

Daniel R. Schwartz Jewish Movements of the New Testament Period

Naomi Seidman Translation of the Bible

Claudia Setzer The First Letter of Peter; Jewish Responses to Believers in Jesus

David Stern Midrash and Parables in the New Testament

Geza Vermes Jewish Miracle Workers in the Late Second Temple Period

Burton L. Visotzky Jesus in Rabbinic Tradition

Lawrence M. Wills The Gospel According to Mark

Peter Zaas The Letter of Paul to the Colossians

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS

HISTORY AND SOCIETY

LITERATURE

JEWISH RESPONSES TO THE NEW TESTAMENT

THE EDITORS PREFACE

It is almost two millennia since the earliest texts incorporated into the New Testament were composed. For the most part, these centuries have seen a painful relationship between Jews and Christians. Although Jewish perceptions of Christians and Christian perceptions of Jews have improved markedly in recent decades, Jews and Christians still misunderstand many of each others texts and traditions. The landmark publication of this book is a witness to that improvement; ideally, it will serve to increase our knowledge of both our common histories and the reasons why we came to separate.

The word Jewish in the title The Jewish Annotated New Testament serves several roles. First, this volume highlights in its annotations and essays aspects of first- and second-century Judaism that enrich the understanding of the New Testament: customs, literature, and interpretations of biblical texts. We believe that it is important for both Jews and non-Jews to understand how close, in many aspects, significant parts of the New Testament are to the Jewish practices and beliefs reflected in the works of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo and Josephus, the Pseudepigrapha and Deuterocanonical literature, the Targumim (Aramaic translations of the Bible), and slightly later rabbinic literature, and that the New Testament has, in many passages, Jewish origins. Jesus was a Jew, as was Paul; likely the authors known as Matthew and John were Jews, as were the authors of the Epistle of James and the book of Revelation. When they were writing, the parting of the ways had not yet occurred. Other authors, such as the individual who composed the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, while probably not Jewish themselves, were profoundly influenced by first- and second-century Jewish thought and by the Jewish translation of Tanakh into Greek, the Septuagint. Thus, understanding the diverse Jewish populations of the early Roman Empiretheir habits, their conventions, their religious practicesis as crucial to understanding the New Testament writings as is general familiarity with the Roman world. In turn, familiarity with the New Testament helps Jews to recover some of our own history.