Welcome
To Temple Beth El

Sunday, October 31, November 14, November 28 & December 12 at 10:15 am

The New Testament is not simply rooted in Judaism, it is also a document within Jewish history, in a particularly important and stressful period, the end of the Second Temple era. The letters of Paul, a Pharisee, were written a few years before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, and the Gospels were written shortly after. Most of the authors of the various New Testament texts were Jews, writing from a deeply Jewish context about such fundamentally Jewish beliefs as the coming of the Messiah and the ultimate sovereignty of God, as proclaimed by the prophets. To be sure, later Christians interpreted these ideas in ways that diverged significantly from their Jewish meanings, and all too often used their interpretations not only to differentiate their beliefs but also to excoriate those who did not agree. Still, to read the New Testament in its historical context is to discover much about the Judaism of the time, as well as to see the beginnings of Christianity. The text for our course is "The Jewish Annotated New Testament," an edition prepared by Jewish scholars with the explicit aim of restoring that historical context.

This 4-session class will be taught by Bruce Herzberg, a TBE member, who is emeritus professor of English at Bentley University, where he taught the Bible as Literature, both Tanakh and New Testament, for many years.