abstract: Since its modern renaissance in the mid-1970s, the Messianic Jewish movement in America has grown from a handful of house churches to a network of hundreds of synagogues and congregations. Mainline American Judaism has unanimously rejected the argument that Jews who believe in Jesus continue to be members of the Jewish community or that their religion is a form of contemporary Judaism. Scholars have accounted for Messianic Judaism as a new religious movement but no consensus has formed on whether to classify Messianic Jewish religion as a sectarian form of Protestant Christianity or American Judaism. This dissertation uses a polythetic approach to defining Judaism and a comparative approach to studying religions in order to make sense of Hashivenu, a newly emergent community of Messianic Jews, and the claim that their religion is “truly” Judaism and not Christianity. It addresses the question of how scholars of religion can account for Messianic Judaism in the mapping of American religion without succumbing to essentialist definitions of Judaism that religious communities use to set boundaries and differentiate themselves from competing groups. Following the lead set by Bruce Lincoln on defining religion in four domains and Michael Satlow on defining Judaism through the use of conceptual maps, research on Messianic Judaism suggests that individual beliefs about whether Jesus is or is not the Messiah or part of a Trinitarian theology are less important to the academic classificatory project than is the authorizing religious discourse of the New Testament to which all Messianic Jews, including the Hashivenu group, appeal for creating community, legitimating practice, and constructing a Messianic Jewish worldview. Since Messianic Judaism properly contributes simultaneously to maps of both Judaism and Christianity, Hashivenu’s prescriptive approach to creating Judaism out of characteristics from two historically competitive, even antithetical religious traditions challenges scholars to contend with the limitations of defining Judaism and Christianity within the parameters of an unpopular but still regnant World Religions discourse predicated on the presumption that the two religions have long ago permanently parted ways. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Religious Studies 2015

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How should Christians live so as to set them apart in manner of life from Jews? This is one of the first questions asked by early Christian exegetes as Christians sought separation from Judaism. 1 While it may seem like a simple and obvious question, it caused heated controversy from the second century well into the present. This struggle for orthodoxy, or an orthodox doctrine, connects to both Christianity within the teachings of Jesus, the Pauline epistles and pseudo-Pauline writings, as well as to the culture and philosophy of the East and West. Much of the debate finds itself being addressed in the broad question "how should a Christian live?" Out of this question came the development of asceticism, marking the beginnings of monasticism.

The Aramaic Book of Ahiqar, an ancient instruction that combines a novella and set of wise sayings, was discovered among a cache of papyri dating to the 5th c. B.C.E. belonging to a community of Judeans on the southern Egyptian Nile-island of Elephantine. The text describes a court scribe named Ahiqar who is betrayed by his nephew and successor Nadan and sentenced to deathy by the Assyrian king Esarhaddon. Ahiqar is saved, however, by his friend Nabusumiskun, the very person who is supposed to execute him. At this point the text breaks off, but it picks up again in the middle of a series of instructions, presumably from Ahiqar to his son. The content and form of these sayings share significant stylistic, thematic, and contextual similarities to the biblical wisdom corpus, particularly the book of Proverbs and the Egyptian instructions. Much of the past century of research on Ahiqar has centered on philological, paleographical, and lexical matters in an effort to determine the text's original language, provenance, and date. There are some very large methodological gaps. In particular, very little analysis has been done with respect to Ahiqar as a piece of literature. What is the overall message and character of Ahiqar? What is its underlying ethic? What does Ahiqar say about the divine, humanity and the cosmic order? How do the answers to each of these questions relate to the text's material context and readership? Three primary impulses will guide this study in trying to answer these questions: (1) the Book of Ahiqar will be treated as is, thus the narratve and sayings will be interpreted together and not separated according to some diachronic-redactional analysis; (2) comparison with external sources will feature the Egyptian materials, especially the instructions, which have been largely ignored in previous studies; and (3) the message and characteristic features of Ahiqar will be measured against the backdrop of the Judean community at Elephantine. After a survey of previous scholarship and methodological response (Chapter 1), I begin with a literary and formal analysis of Ahiqar (Chapter 2). Narratological and other recent approaches to the Ahiqar narrative reveal a complexity in plot movement and character. Two significant aspects come to the surface: the ambiguous role of the king and the opposition drawn between Nadan and Nabusumiskun. A survey of the formal and stylistic features among the sayings demonstrates a tremendous amount of variety and yet at the same time a significant amount of coherency and overlap, indicating that a saying's context is integral to understanding the nuances of its meaning. The overall structure, content, and function of Ahiqar suggest that its generic background lies within the ancient instruction tradition, particularly those from Egypt. In Chapter 3, I find that the primary message of Ahiqar revolves around the power and danger of the spoken word. Discretion is generally advised. A pervasive ethic of caution undergirds this message. The text also extols the virtues of contentment and humility. In Chapter 4 I take a rhetorical approach that centers on the financial and economic advice. In contrast to several other instructions, the social outlook in Ahiqar typically appropriates the perspective of someone in financial distress or from a lower socio-economic position. Shifting to the socio-political sphere, I determine that the narrative and sayings blur ethnic boundaries, resulting in a reimagining of community that no longer depends on strict ethnic or familial ties. Finally, I turn to anthropological and theological issues (Chapter 5). Here, I argue that Ahiqar evinces a negative anthropology, a conclusion supported by the ethic of caution and a few sayings that speak to human nature and its limits explicitly. Ahiqar's portrayal of the divine contributes to a pervasive tone of anxiety, whereby the gods are symbols for justice but at the same time are inscrutable in their benevolence and wrath. The king, who symbolically stands at the intersection of humanity and the gods, is a similarly ambivalent figure, and, like the gods, can be terriblly and unpredictably destructive. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2015. / July 10, 2015. / Ahiqar, Egypt, Elephantine, Instruction, Judaism, Wisdom / Includes bibliographical references. / Matthew Goff, Professor Directing Dissertation; Svetla Slaveva-Griffin, University Representative; David Levenson, Committee Member; Nicole Kelley, Committee Member.

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The book of Psalms, which contains prayers and songs, is one of the most frequently cited books in the New Testament. The Synoptic evangelists seem to read the Psalms not primarily as prayers but as prophecies of the future. They discovered in its language prophecies concerning the life and ministry of Jesus and attempted to show how Jesus' life was prefigured in the Psalms. The present study is undertaken with a view to examine a topic within the broad subject of the use of the OT in the NT, that of the prophetic reading of the Psalms in the Synoptic gospels, in the context of Second Temple Judaism. This study will consist of six chapters. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the topic which includes examples of the use of the Psalms in the NT, a survey of selected earlier studies done in related areas, and a working definition of a "citation" and "prophecy." This study deals with four psalm citations in Mark, nine in Matthew, and six in Luke. This study presupposes no particular stance on the order of the Synoptic gospels. Chapter 2 examines the prophetic reading of the Psalms in Second Temple Jewish literature. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 discuss direct psalm citations found in Mark, Matthew, and Luke respectively. Chapter 6 summarizes the conclusions of the work and makes suggestions for further research. This study contributes to a broader understanding of the early Christian view that Jesus' life and ministry fulfilled what was foretold in the Psalms. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The forces that have arisen within and without mankind have been responsible for all that has occurred upon the earth in the name of religion, and the greatest force without is God. In the words of James Martineau, "This world is part of the great cosmos, all of whose forces . . . find their unity in God, and whose laws are but the modes and order of His thoughts. In this field, his is not simple First Cause, but Sole Cause; all forces being one, and no force other than his."1 The greatest force within is man's rationalization or intuitive thought about God, which has over the years crystalized into religous creed. From the earliest records which have been preserved down to the present time, the ingenious mind of man has had a prevailing tendency toward material progress and power along with inner spiritual achievment. Ancient Babylonia with its world-famous hanging gardens excelled in magnificent, golden splendor, of which the world up to that time and since has hardly dared to dream. The silver kingdom of the Medo-Persians under Darius was only slightly less illustrious. It was Medo-Persia which turned the course of history and become the second world empire the eveing of Belshazzar's feast,2 as the army of Darius turned the water courses of Babylon and marched under thwalls under cover of the night of ravalry. The battle of Issus saw Darius III's defeat, making Alexander the Great, his kingdom of the thieighs of brass, the master of the known world. Greece, the third succeeding world empire, developoed for the world the love of the beautiful and precision of philosophical definition. Rome, standing on the legs of iron, the east and the west, began its illustrious reign under Augustus, who ruled for forty-four years, presenting the world with a pattern for world law and order. The present age of diversified kingdoms may best be represented as an iron and clay3 mixture of industry, speed and politics. Hebrew tradition according to leading Bible commentators4 began to be recorded history from the pen of the lawgiver, Moses, 1299 B.C., through there is much difference among Bible scholars as to dates earlier than 721 B.C.; while Shinto mythology began taking its place as history as recorded from the lips of Hiedo-no-Are and recorded by Imperior order, 712 A.D. Thus, in and out of world history, like two separate rivers, somethimes mighty and sometimes at low ebb, Hebrew tradition and Shinto mythology began threading their separate ways.

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