Redemption and Resistance - by Markus Bockmuehl & James Carleton Paget (Hardcover)

About the Book

Examines how, for both Christians and Jews, Messianic hopes and conflicts developed in the face of opposition and controversy with fellow Jews, Christians, and pagans.

Book Synopsis

Redemption and Resistance brings together an eminent cast of contributors to provide a state-of-the-art discussion of Messianism as a topic of political and religious commitment and controversy. By surveying this motif over nearly a thousand years with the help of a focused historical and political searchlight, this volume is sure to break fresh ground. It will serve as an attractive contribution to the history of ancient Judaism and Christianity, of the complex and often problematic relationship between them, and of the conflicting loyalties their hopes for redemption created vis-à-vis a public order that was at first pagan and later Christian.

Although each chapter is designed to stand on its own as an introduction to the topic at hand, the overall argument unfolds a coherent history. The first two parts, on pre-Christian Jewish and primitive Christian Messianism, set the stage by identifying two entities that in Part III are then addressed in the development of their explicit relationship in a Graeco-Roman world marked by violent persecution of Jewish and Christian hopes and loyalties. The story is then explored beyond the Constantinian turn and its abortive reversal under Julian, to the Christian Empire up to the rise of Islam.

Review Quotes

'I hope this very readable and inspiring book will find its place as a standard work in every library and on the desk of all who are interested in the problems and history of Jewish Christian relations.' Martin Hengel, Emeritus Professor of New Testament and Early Judaism, University of Tubingen, Germany--Sanford Lakoff

'This very interesting volume forms a worthy tribute to a distinguished colleague'. Michael A. Knibb, King's College London Journal of Jewish Studies LIX, No. 2 Autumn 08--Sanford Lakoff

"Bockmuehl and Paget are to be congratulated not only for offering a fitting tribute to their mentor but for compiling a resource that will undoubtedly aid in the advancement of the scholarly discourse to which Professor Horbury has devoted so much of his own professional attention. The essays collected in Redemption and Resistance represent a comprehensive body of knowledge on the subject of messianism among Jews and Christians in antiquity. This book deserves the attention of all serious-minded scholars intending to explore the historical and ideological dimensions of this phenomenon." Joshua Ezra Burns, Review of Biblical Literature, May 2008--Sanford Lakoff

"Redemption and Resistance offers a fitting and ambitious tribute to the profound and wide-ranging scholarship of William Horbury. In twenty one succinct chapters a crew of internationally renowned scholars attempts an up to date survey of the history of Messianism from the Persian period to Christian and Jewish L ate Antiquity. The reader is introduced to major debates and methodologies of recent research on the subject. The volumes journey starts and ends in Jerusalem, on the way it traverses many different political, cultural and religious contexts in which Messianic ideas and concepts were articulated. In this way the extraordinary complexity and diversity of the various Messianisms is revealed."

Prof Dr Winrich Lohr, Universitat Heidelberg, Germany--Sanford Lakoff

"This volume offers a wide-ranging and valuable investigation of ancient Jewish and Christian notions of messianism by some of the leading authorities in the field." 32.5 (2008)--Sanford Lakoff "Journal for The Study of the Old Testament "

"Most of them in the US or Britain, biblical scholars explore ancient thinking that combined messianic hopes for redemption with convictions and practices of resistance to political or political oppression. They cover Jewish messianic expectation through the Persian, Hasmonean, Herodian, and Graceo-Roman periods in the first section. The second section turns to the New Testament, considering such topics as resistance and redemption in the Jesus tradition, messiah and resistance in the gospel and epistles of John, the Christ of Paul, and the Apocalypse. Contact and controversy between the two religions is dealt with in the final section. Essays there include Jews and Christians in the Holy Land 135-325, the material remains, messianism in ancient Aramaic and Syriac translations of the Bible, pre-Islamic Byzantium, and the religious scene in seventh-century Jerusalem." -Eithne O'Leyne, BOOK NEWS, Inc.

'Redemption and Resistance brings together an eminent cast of contributors to provide a state-of-the-art discussion of Messianism as a topic of political and religious commitment and controversy ... this volume is sure to break fresh ground ... Although each chapter is designed to stand on its own as an introduction to the topic at hand, the overall argument unfolds a coherent history.' Theological Book Review, Volume 20, No 2, 2008

About the Author

Dr Markus Bockmuehl is Professor of Biblical and Early Christian Studies at the University of St Andrews, UK. James Carleton Paget is Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies in the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, UK.