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Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / The primary purpose of this thesis is to utilize the major scholarly works available in French and English to establish that Judaism and Christianity have been influenced by the ethical religion of Zoroaster. In the first section the early date of Zoroaster (660 B.C.), is initially suggested as a factor in the developmental precedence of Zoroastrianism. The influence of Zoroaster is extended through literature, ethics and the munificence of the Persian court in Babylon. The Jews are suggested to have been, "a discouraged, disorganized and bitter lot", when taken to Babylon. The Jew's high monotheistic concept of God developed in and after the Exile. During the Exile and the period after, the Jews had a prolonged exposure to spphisticated Zoroastrianism. On the Persian side, the religion began to deteriorate soon after the Prophet's death. The degree of that deterioration and the level influencing the Jews is crucial to the issue. The first section is summed up in pointing out the possible beneficial and detrimental influences of Zoroastrianism upon Judaism. The second section concerns the impact of Zoroastrianism directly and indirectly upon Christianity. The problem of tracing what similarities are definitely traceable to Zoroastrianism is stated and then the similarities are listed. The further possible influence through Mithraism and Manichaeism is treated in detail. There is a short summary. / 2031-01-01

This thesis seeks to gain a fresh perspective on the movement reflected in the Damascus Document by asking if it could be seen as a Revitalization Movement, a theoretical construct developed by the American anthropologist Anthony Wallace. Signs of a cultural identity crisis and the changes in society causing it are evident throughout the Damascus Document. By comparing the findings to Wallace's model, we understand that the movement could have developed as a reaction to a context of profound cultural changes. This study challenges the prominent view that the major crisis causing the rise of the movement was the Babylonian exile, as another paradigm related to Isa 7 .17, featuring Ephraim's departure from Judah, is alluded to in several ways. The princes of Judah are compared to Ephraim and depicted as those who depart, because they have adopted a foreign way of life, the way of the kings of Greece. While both paradigms were seen to represent collective memories used as warnings of judgment, the theme of division of the northern and the southern kingdoms in the past is portrayed as comparable to the current conflict in society.

This study provides a small-scale comparative analysis of the religious outlook and practice of two generational groups of Masorti Jews in Israel. Conducted from an insider perspective, it aims to provide insights into changes of religious outlook and practices between the two generations. The first-generation participants comprised immigrants from North America whereas the second-generation participants were born and raised in Israel. Its results are mat to inform and support the future development of Masorti Judaism in Israel while also making an original contribution to sociological knowledge about the lived experiences of religiously motivated migrations from a generational perspective. The research adopts a pragmatic, predominantly qualitative approach, utilizing the Bourdieusian concepts of habitus, doxa, field, and capital to better understand how religious outlook and practices were sustained and transmitted across generations. The use of the Bourdieusian theory has provided a framework for structuring and conceptualizing day-to-day behaviors, actions and statements, as presented in the interviews, and for developing an analysis of the different fields which each generational group encountered, the ways that different forms of capital were valued and transformed, and how this affected interviewees' habitus. Data were gathered from interviews with nine members of the first generation and eight members of the second generation. The data relating to second generation participants were ultimately supplemented by a short questionnaire completed by thirty additional members of the same generation. The Bourdieusian analysis has provided a holistic approach that illuminated important differences in religious outlook and practices between the generational groups. The first generation group had generally tried to maintain the religious outlook and practice with which they came to Israel. They also created new congregations and institutions to sustain and perpetuate them. The second-generation participants displayed a reduced commitment to Jewish law and religious-communal structures. Both generational groups shared a strong commitment to Jewish activism as a feature of their Jewish outlook, although this outlook was carried out in different ways.

This thesis identifies the German rabbinate in British exile as a distinct refugee sub-group and traces its experiences from the onset of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s to those in Britain, ending in 1956 It argues that the rabbinate rose to unprecedented prominence under the Nazi regime as it was part of the communal leadership structure within German Jewry and maintained this role in the early years in exile. It was found that the end of the war and the vanishing of outside pressures impacted on the German rabbinate changing it into a different, modern, Anglo-Jewish institution, with German roots and influences. With the changed demands of the Anglo-Jewish population on their rabbis and the ageing German rabbis passing on, the heritage was transferred into Anglo-Jewish institutions such as newly founded synagogues and the Leo Baeck College. This had been facilitated through the rigorous training and the powerful experiences of the immigrant rabbis which gave the impact for religious expansion in Britain. Their influence turned the progressive but also the orthodox movement into a powerful force in the Anglo-Jewish landscape today. On a personal level the study uncovered that despite their prominence, the experiences of the German rabbinate in British exile unfolded along the same lines as that of the general refugee population fleeing Nazism. In their leadership capacity however most rabbis were able to reclaim their position in the midst of the refugees, the remnants of their former communities now in exile. With that they held responsibility and power. Their attempts of transplanting and maintaining the German Jewish heritage in Britain was a desperate and only marginally successful undertaking with only few traces still recognizable today. Their attempts had a dramatic influence on the course and future of Anglo-Jewry.

In the seventeenth century, in England, a remarkable number of small, religious movements began adopting demonstratively Jewish ritual practices. They were labelled by their contemporaries as Judaizers. Typically, this phenomenon has been explained with reference to other tropes of Puritan practical divinity. It has been claimed that Judaizing was a form of Biblicism or a form of millenarianism. In this thesis, I contend that Judaizing was an expression of another aspect of the Puritan experience: the need to be recognized as a 'singular,' positively-distinctive, separated minority.

The thrust of this thesis is encapsulated in the title – Paul, Jerusalem and the Judaisers: The Galatian Crisis in Its Broader Historical Context – which reflects the author’s insistence that reconstructing all the events surrounding the crisis that impelled Paul to compose his letter to the Galatians is essential to understanding this letter. The position taken in this study is that the Galatian crisis was initiated by a group of Judaising opponents acting under the direct authority of the Jerusalem church. The origins of this controversy can be traced back to the early dispute between the Hellenists and the Hebrews described in the Acts of the Apostles, which led to the expulsion of the Hellenists from Jerusalem and the establishment of the community in Antioch. Paul’s opponents apparently cited Jerusalem as the source of and the warrant for their Law-observant gospel. In Galatians, Paul alludes to events involving Judaising opponents that transpired in Jerusalem and Antioch prior to the outbreak of the crisis at Galatia. Thus, the immediate background of the crisis is found in the Jerusalem Council (Gal 2:1-10; Acts 15:1-35) and the Incident at Antioch (Gal 2:11-14). Turning to the conflict in Galatia itself this thesis attempts to explore the links between these earlier events and the Galatian crisis. The primary avenue for this examination will be via a consideration of Paul’s argument in Galatians. By the careful use of the mirror-reading technique, this thesis will endeavour to reconstruct the message and the origins of Paul’s opponents. The thesis concludes with a brief examination of Paul’s later conflicts with Judaising opponents at Corinth and Philippi, as well as the autobiographical material in Romans, all of which will provide an insight into the eventual outcome of the crisis in Galatia

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, The Divinity School, June 2005. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.