The Use of Rabbinic Sources in Gospel Studies

Tyndale Bulletin, 1999

New Testament scholars tend to avoid rabbinic sources because of the problem of dating. This is a genuine problem, but it is not insurmountable. The work of Neusner and others has highlighted this problem but it has also indicated some ways to deal with it. This review article looks at three recent books which demonstrate the usefulness of rabbinic background for studying the Gospels. All three have dealt with the problem of dating, with varying success. Brad Young has produced a useful book on the Parables, though he tends to compare them with the theology of post-Temple Judaism. Roger Aus’ studies sometimes suffer from parallelomania, though his investigation of the woman caught in adultery is masterful. Maurice Casey’s search for the Aramaic behind Mark leads him into creative and sometimes compelling arguments based on rabbinic texts. All three clearly believe that they can identify early rabbinic material and deal with it critically, and on the whole they appear to have succeed...

Scottish Journal of Theology, 1997

The use of rabbinic literature for the study of the Gospels has been hugely influenced, for good and ill, by John Lightfoot's Horae Hebricae et Talmudicae. 1 He used the model of a commentary to collate passages from rabbinic literature which contained parallels and background material. This was successful at adding colour and context to the Gospels with regard to the Temple cult and, to some extent, the manner of Jewish teaching, but fell short on theological background. This deficiency was partly due to Lightfoot's self-conscious rejection and reaction against Jewish theology, but it was also due to the nature of the available texts which were largely concerned with rules for life rather than the meaning of life.

Church History, 2013

Religions, 2019

This special issue of Religions focuses on seven of the most important formal methods used to interpret the New Testament today. Several of the articles also touch on Old Testament/Hebrew Bible interpretation. In line with the multiplicity of methods for interpretation of texts in the humanities in general, biblical study has never before seen so many different methods. This situation poses both opportunities and challenges for scholars and students alike. This issue contains contributions by a mix of established scholars and younger scholars who have recently demonstrated their expertise in a certain method. Some articles will be easily accessible only to biblical scholars, but most will be accessible and instructive for beginning-and intermediate-level students of the Bible. I hope that the free-access essays offered here will become required reading in many universities and seminaries. The readership statistics displayed with each article, with information about how they have been read since their online publication here, show that they already have a wide appeal. I want to thank these authors for their contribution to this issue and for working so well with me and indirectly with the anonymous peer reviewers. Here, adapted from their abstracts, are brief introductions to their articles. Michele A. Connolly's article, "Antipodean and Biblical Encounter: Postcolonial Vernacular Hermeneutics in Novel Form," gives a post-secular exploration of what the Bible offers to modern-day Australia. She maintains that Australian culture, despite its secularity, has a capacity for spiritual awareness in ways that resonate with the Bible. Connolly employs R. S. Sugirtharajah's concept of "vernacular hermeneutics" to show that a contemporary Australian novel, The Shepherd's Hut by Tim Winton, expresses an Australian spirituality saturated with the images and values of the New Testament, but in a non-religious literary form that needs interpretation for a secular audience. Connolly's creative and fascinating article speaks not only to the Australian context but can serve as a model for the intersection of postcolonial biblical criticism and contemporary literature from many parts of the post-Christian world. "A Deep-Language Mathematical Analysis of Gospels, Acts and Revelation," by Emilio Matricciani and Liberato De Caro, offers a different kind of statistical analysis of the New Testament than scholars may be familiar with. It uses mathematical methods developed for studying what the authors call deep-language parameters of literary texts, for example, the number of words per sentence, the number of characters per word, the number of words between interpunctions (punctuation within sentences), and the number of interpunctions per sentence. Matricciani and De Caro consider, in concert with generally-accepted conclusions of New Testament scholarship, the full texts of the canonical Gospels, Acts and Revelation, then the Gospel passages attributable to the triple tradition (Matthew, Mark and Luke), to the double tradition (Matthew and Luke), to the single tradition in Matthew and Luke, and to the Q source. The results confirm and reinforce some common conclusions about the Gospels, Acts, Revelation, and Q source, but the authors show that they cast some new light on the capacity of the short-term memory of the readers/listeners of these texts. The authors posit that these New Testament writings fit very well in the larger Greek literature of the time. For readers unaccustomed to using

BRILL eBooks, 2010

On a personal note, I can say that rabbinic literature is a field that was too little explored during my training as a biblical exegete. Once I entered the doctoral program, however, the relevance and richness of this literature soon became undeniable for the study of the Bible and related topics. Therefore, the expert colloquium at our faculty was an excellent opportunity to get an overview of the developments and areas within the field of rabbinic literature and its importance for New Testament scholarship. Divided over two days, the fifteen lectures were grouped in four large topical areas: "State of the Art," "Methodology," "Halakha," and "Language and Literature." After the welcoming address and opening of the colloquium by Didier Pollefeyt, President of Institutum Iudaicum, the Interuniversity Center for the Academic Study of Judaism in Belgium, and Jan Willem van Henten from the Netherlands School for Advanced Studies in Theology and Religion (NOSTER), Peter Tomson chaired the first session of the symposium. William Horbury had the honour of introducing the audience to the topic of the symposium. In his lecture "The New Testament and Rabbinic Study: A Historical Sketch" he provided an overview of New Testament interpretation in the light of rabbinic tradition. Although this kind of interpretation only became a distinct field of research in the seventeenth century, already in the third century the interest in Jewish literature and tradition in Christian biblical study was stimulated through controversies between the two religions. This resulted in the practice of confronting the New Testament with Jewish tradition, which also regularly evoked resistance. At the end of the Middle Ages (15th-16th centuries), rabbinic material was prominent in the commentary tradition of New Testament parts of early printed Bibles. The renaissance of Greek was accompanied by an efflorescence of post-Biblical Hebrew study among non-Jews. The Christian Hebraists of the 17th and 18th centuries created the environment which resulted in the work of, for instance, Strack and Billerbeck. Like in ancient times, the application of the rabbinic tradition to the New Testament

Puritan Reformed Journal, 2021

The four gospels are a central part of the Christian canon of scripture. This volume treats the gospels not just as historical sources, but also as crucial testimony to the life of God made known in Jesus Christ. This approach helps to overcome the sometimes damaging split between critical gospel study and questions of theology, ethics and the life of faith. The essays are by acknowledged experts in a range of theological disciplines. The first section considers what are appropriate ways of reading the gospels given the kinds of texts they are. The second, central section covers the contents of the gospels. The third section looks at the impact of the gospels in church and society across history and up to the present day. stephen c. barton is Reader in New Testament in the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Durham, England, and a nonstipendiary minister at St John's Church, Neville's Cross. His books include Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library isbn-13 978-0-521-80766-1 hardback isbn-10 0-521-80766-2 hardback isbn-13 978-0-521-00261-5 paperback isbn-10 0-521-00261-3 paperback