Soundings in the Religion of Jesus

Jesus was a Jew and not a Christian. That affirmation may seem obvious, but here an international cast of Jewish and Christian scholars spell out its weighty and often complex consequences for contemporary Jewish-Christian dialogue. Soundings in the Religion of Jesus contextualizes Jesus and the writings about him that set the stage for Jewish-Christian relations for the next 2000 years. Of equal importance, this book considers the reception, celebration, and (too often) the neglect of Jesus' Jewishness in modern contexts and the impact such responses have had for Jewish-Christian relations. Topics explored include the ethics of scriptural translation, the ideological motives of Nazi theologians and other quests for the Historical Jesus, and the ways in which New Testament portraits of Jesus both help and hurt authentic Jewish-Christian dialogue.

Bruce Chilton is Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College. He has authored numerous books on Jesus in his Jewish context, including A Galilean Rabbi and His Bible (1984), Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography (2002), The Way of Jesus: To Repair and Renew the World (2010), and, with Deirdre Good, Studying the New Testament: A Fortress Introduction (Fortress Press, 2010). Anthony Le Donne is a founding member of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue and Sacred Texts consultation of the Society of Biblical Literature. He is the author of The Historiographical Jesus: Memory, Typology, and the Son of David (2009) and The Historical Jesus: What Can We Known and How Can We Know It? (2011) and coeditor of The Fourth Gospel in First-Century Media Culture (2011). Jacob Neusner is Distinguished Service Professor of the History and Theology of Judaism at Bard College and the author of a great number of books on Judaism and Jewish history, including, from Fortress Press, A Short History of Judaism (1992), Recovering Judaism: The Universal Dimension of Judaism (2000), and, with Bruce Chilton, Jewish-Christian Debates: God, Kingdom, Messiah (2000).