Traditionally, Judaism has constructed barriers to separate itself from Christianity. Anti-Christian apologetics fill the Talmud, and, as a result, function as the fundamental premise for centuries of Christian-themed responsa, spanning time and place from Maimonides to Moshe Feinstein. Considered within the broader context of the halakha, this approach follows similar patterns of separation in Jewish tradition. Much of the halakha, for example, functions to divide oppositestamei from tahor and kodesh from hol (Lev. 10:10); therefore, when Leviticus says that God has set you apart from the peoples, (20:26), the concept of separation broadens to encapsulate a functional role of the Torah as way of preserving the halakhic Jewish culture from the non-halakhic Gentile way-of-life. After nearly two thousand years of Jewish development as a religious minority living in primarily Christian territories, this segregationfueled by textual support for dissociation and an often tense history of relationstriggered alienation between the two sibling religions. However, using historical circumstances as context and recent trends in Jewish-Christian relations as a foundation, Jewish religious approaches to Christianity should be re-evaluated. As the social and intellectual realms verge on harmony, the time for religious cooperation commences. While many potential religious undertakings exist as options for Jews and Christians going forward, joint worship, as this paper will examine, offers significant potential for forming bonds in the next phase of dialogue.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07202011-151240 |
| Date | 09 December 2011 |
| Creators | Whitley, Rachael E. |
| Contributors | Philip I. Ackerman-Lieberman, Leah Marcus |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07202011-151240/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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