Israel's God and Rebecca's Children
Christology and Community in Early Judaism and Christianity

Israel's God and Rebecca's Children is a collection of essays written as a tribute to the lasting scholarship and friendship of Larry Hurtado (University of Edinburgh) and Alan Segal (Barnard College), two scholars who have contributed significantly to the contemporary understanding of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. Their colleagues and friends examine a wide range of topics that have been the focus of Hurtado and Segal’s research, including Christology, community, Jewish-Christian relations, soteriology and the development of early Christianity. Together these essays reconceptualize Christology and community in Judaism and Christianity and provide valuable insights into the issues of community and identity.

Introduction

Larry W. Hurtado

Alan F. Segal

PART I: RECONCEPTUALIZING CHRISTOLOGY AND COMMUNITY

1 How We Talk about Christology Matters

April D. DeConick

2 Mandatory Retirement: Ideas in the Study of Christian Origins Whose Time Has Come to Go

Paula Fredriksen

3 The “Most High” God and the Nature of Early Jewish Monotheism

Richard Bauckham

4 “How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?”: A Reply

Adela Yarbro Collins

5 Resurrection and Christology: Are They Related?

Pheme Perkins

6 Are Early New Testament Manuscripts Truly Abundant?

Eldon Jay Epp

PART II: STUDIES IN CHRISTOLOGY

7 Prophetic Identity and Conflict in the Historic Ministry of Jesus

Maurice Casey

8 Pauline Exegesis and the Incarnate Christ

David B. Capes

9 Christophany as a Sign of “the End”

Carey C. Newman

10 When Did the Understanding of Jesus’ Death as an Atoning Sacrifice First Emerge?

James D. G. Dunn

11 Discarding the Seamless Robe: The High Priesthood of Jesus in John’s Gospel

Helen K. Bond

12 Remembering and Revelation: The Historic and Glorified Jesus in the Gospel of John

Larry W. Hurtado

13 Jesus: “The One Who Sees God”

Marianne Meye Thompson

14 The Lamb (Not the Man) on the Divine Throne

Charles A. Gieschen

PART III: STUDIES IN COMMUNITY

15 The Promise of the Spirit of Life in the Book of Ezekiel

John R. Levison

16 Sadducees, Zadokites, and the Wisdom of Ben Sira

Jonathan Klawans

17 On the Changing Significance of the Sacred

Rachel Elior

18 Vespasian, Nerva, Jesus, and Fiscus Judaicus

Paul Foster

19 Paul’s Religious Experience in the Eyes of Jewish Scholars

Alan F. Segal

20 Liturgy and Communal Identity: Hellenistic Synagogal Prayer 5 and the Character of Early Syrian Christianity

Troy A. Miller

21 Anger, Reconciliation, and Friendship in Matthew 5:21-26

John T. Fitzgerald

Notes

List of Contributors