Anti-Judaism and the Gospels

When and under what circumstances did the Gospel texts begin to serve anti-Jewish ends? Can it be said, accurately and fairly, that the evangelists were anti-Jewish? Are there tendencies in the Gospels that were originally intended by the evangelists to injure the Jewish people or their religion, or to work against the interests of the Jewish people and/or their religion? These and other issues were addressed in a three-year research project that culminated in a fall 1996 convocation, at which five major research papers were presented with two respondents to each paper. The papers and responses are now made available for the first time in this volume. Major presentations include: * Anti-Judaism and the Gospel of Matthew -Amy-Jill Levine * Anti-Judaism and the Gospel of Luke -Daryl D. Schmidt * Anti-Judaism and the Gospel of John -David Regensberger * Something Greater than the Temple -Robert Louis Wilken * Anti-Judaism in the Critical Study of the Gospels -Joseph B. Tyson * Reflections on Anti-Judaism in the New Testament and in Christianity -E.P. Sanders This book succeeds in giving a comprehensive view of the problem it addresses, and the papers are clear, forthright presentations that will help the reader see what the issues were when the Gospels were written and what they still are. -E.P. Sanders, Duke University William R. Farmer is Professor of New Testament at the University of Dallas and co-editor of Jesus and the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins (Trinity 1998).