107-412 Aspects of Judeo-Christianity

Admission to the postgraduate diploma or fourth year honours in classics and archaeology.

This subject comprises various topics concerned with early Christianity in a Jewish setting, with particular reference to Hellenistic influences over both religious movements. The emergence of Christianity and its transition from Jewish sectarian movement into an independent religion involved profound rethinking of the essential foundations of Judaism. This process involved not so much a rejection of Judaism as an exploitation of the diversity of Judaism at the time. This subject studies this diversity in detail, and considers the way in which it led to the emergence of a distinct and essentially non-Jewish offshoot. Students who complete the subject should understand the relationship between Judaism and Christianity in the first three centuries and be able to trace the many and various influences over Judaism and Christianity.