Peter Schäfer, Dr. Drs. h.c.

Arbeitsvorhaben

Die Entstehung von Judentum und Christentum in den ersten nachchristlichen Jahrhunderten

Judaism is a set of practices and beliefs that have changed constantly, and sometimes radically, over the centuries. One major change took place after the Babylonian exile, when some of the essential characteristics of what we today call "Judaism" took shape; another one occurred in the second century B.C.E. under the influence of "Hellenism"; and yet another, and decisive, change happened during the first centuries of the Christian era, when a sect emerged within the Jewish religion that would develop into a powerful religion of its own.
During the last 20 years, scholars of Judaism and Early Christianity have become increasingly aware of the fact that the emergence of "Christianity" within the lap of "Judaism" did not happen at a certain point in time but was a process that extended over centuries. Moreover, and more importantly, a consensus is about to be reached that this process wasn't just a one-way-street, leading straight from "Judaism" to "Christianity", but that it had its repercussions in both directions: A constant and overlapping effort of self-definition, demarcation and, later on, separation of both religions under the impact of each other.
Taking up one of my very first publications ("Die sogenannte Synode von Jabne: Zur Trennung von Juden und Christen im 1./2. Jahrhundert n. Chr." 1975), I will re-evaluate the available evidence within the rabbinic and early Christian literary corpora that touches upon questions of self-definition, with an emphasis on the issue of "heresy" (minut), and I will describe this process in all its prolonged, multifarious, and far from unambiguous aspects.

Recommended Reading

Schäfer, Peter. Judeophobia: Attitudes Toward the Jews in the Ancient World. Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Schäfer, Peter. Mirror of His Beauty: Feminine Images of God from the Bible to the Early Kabbalah. Princeton, N. J. and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002.
Schäfer, Peter. Jesus in the Talmud. Princeton, N. J. and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007.

Kolloquium, 22.01.2008

Warum ist das Messiasbaby verschwunden? Die Geburt des Christentums aus dem Geist des Judentums

Mein Vortrag geht von der (absichtlich provokativen) Annahme aus, dass Judentum und Christentum in langen Phasen ihrer Geschichte keine getrennten religiösen Einheiten waren, die in herrlicher Isolation lebten und durch Feindschaft und Hass auf ewig von einander abgeschottet waren. Ich möchte darlegen, dass diese Annahme auf jeden Fall für die ersten nachchristlichen Jahrhunderte zutrifft, als das Christentum aus dem Judentum, seiner Mutter- oder vielmehr Schwesterreligion entstand. In meinem Vortrag möchte ich mich auf eine berühmte Geschichte konzentrieren, die im Jerusalemer Talmud überliefert ist; in dieser Geschichte wird der Moment eingefangen, in dem sich das Christentum - wörtlich - in statu nascendi befindet, also genau jener Moment, als es den Lenden des Judentums entsprang.