Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Torah for Gentiles? : what the Jewish authors of the Didache had to say / Daniel Nessim.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Eugene, Oregon : Pickwick Publications, [2021]Copyright date: ©2021Description: 1 online resource (xvii, 269 pages)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9781725267091
  • 1725267098
  • 9781725267084
  • 172526708X
  • 9781725267077
  • 1725267071
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Additional physical formats: Print version: Torah for Gentiles? : what the Jewish authors of the Didache had to sayDDC classification:
  • 270.1 23
LOC classification:
  • BS2940.T4 N47 2021eb
Other classification:
  • online - EBSCO
Online resources:
Contents:
Part One. Didache and Torah -- 1. The Didache and the Torah : a literature review -- 2. Text and transmission -- Part Two. A Comprehensible and Authoritative Teaching -- 3. Crisis and community -- 4. Two ways and the one way of Torah -- 5. An authoritative Torah and teacher -- Part Three. Torah for the Lord's Community -- 6. The two ways choice -- 7. The sectio, Jesus and the Torah -- 8. The sectio, Jesus, and the two ways -- 9. The Torah and the two ways -- 10. The yoke of the Lord -- 11. The two ways disciple -- Conclusion.
Summary: "In the matrix of nascent Judaism and Christianity, the Didache is a Christian-Jewish voice seeking to mediate the Torah to its gentile recipients in a manner appropriate for them. Steering diplomatically between the Scylla and Charybdis of the Law-observant Jerusalem church and Pauline dogma, the Didache is very clear that gentiles do not need to convert to Judaism. On the other hand, the author argues, the Torah, and in particular the second Table of the Decalogue, is universally applicable to everyone, Jew and gentile. While gentiles are not required to keep commands specific to Israel, the Deuteronomic paradigm of the 'Way of Life' versus the 'Way of Death' is applicable to all. Jesus said 'my yoke is easy.' The Didache mandates bearing the yoke of the Lord in order to attain perfection. The yoke it advocates is not as 'easy' as one might suppose, yet both Jews and Christians would recognize its morals as largely the same as those that underpin Judaeo-Christian values today. Further, they reflect the requirements that Christian Jews saw as necessary for participation in the Christian community, in a day when that community still looked very much to its Jewish progenitors."--Publisher.

Revision of the author's doctoral thesis "Didache, Torah, and the Gentile Mission: A Mediation of Torah for the Church." Accepted by the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter in 2019.

Includes bibliographic references and indexes.

Part One. Didache and Torah -- 1. The Didache and the Torah : a literature review -- 2. Text and transmission -- Part Two. A Comprehensible and Authoritative Teaching -- 3. Crisis and community -- 4. Two ways and the one way of Torah -- 5. An authoritative Torah and teacher -- Part Three. Torah for the Lord's Community -- 6. The two ways choice -- 7. The sectio, Jesus and the Torah -- 8. The sectio, Jesus, and the two ways -- 9. The Torah and the two ways -- 10. The yoke of the Lord -- 11. The two ways disciple -- Conclusion.

"In the matrix of nascent Judaism and Christianity, the Didache is a Christian-Jewish voice seeking to mediate the Torah to its gentile recipients in a manner appropriate for them. Steering diplomatically between the Scylla and Charybdis of the Law-observant Jerusalem church and Pauline dogma, the Didache is very clear that gentiles do not need to convert to Judaism. On the other hand, the author argues, the Torah, and in particular the second Table of the Decalogue, is universally applicable to everyone, Jew and gentile. While gentiles are not required to keep commands specific to Israel, the Deuteronomic paradigm of the 'Way of Life' versus the 'Way of Death' is applicable to all. Jesus said 'my yoke is easy.' The Didache mandates bearing the yoke of the Lord in order to attain perfection. The yoke it advocates is not as 'easy' as one might suppose, yet both Jews and Christians would recognize its morals as largely the same as those that underpin Judaeo-Christian values today. Further, they reflect the requirements that Christian Jews saw as necessary for participation in the Christian community, in a day when that community still looked very much to its Jewish progenitors."--Publisher.