Invention and convention: Jewish and Christian critique of the Jewish fixed calendar

The institution of the Jewish fixed calendar has provoked muchcontroversial discussion not only among Jewish, but also Christian scholars. The significant contributions to the subject by two of the great sixteenth-century polymaths, the Jew Azariah de' Rossi and the Christian Sebastian Münster, pinpoint the delicate nature of calendrical investigation. Münster's frequent use of one particular piyyut (a religious poem) to undermine the basis of the Jewish fixed calendar is intended to defend the contradictory calendrical data in the Gospels. De' Rossi implicitly attacks Muenster for his recourse to this unhistorical text. Yet de' Rossi himself is intent on proving that the Jewish fixed calendar is a late post-talmudic convention, an iconoclastic approach which was not welcome in certain rabbinic circles. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

犹太哈西德运动历史初探

本文对近代犹太哈西德运动产生的社会背景、发展状况进行历史性的考察,认为该运动之产生是东欧犹太社区对其生存境况恶化而做出的反应,其发展一方面与整个东欧犹太社区所面临问题的共性有关,亦与该运动独特的内部结构与发展方式有关;本文还分析了该运动独特的宗教主张,分析其在犹太教神秘主义运动中的地位及宗教价值和社会意义.在现代性日益发展的今天,哈西德运动的存在本身具有其特殊的文化意义,应当得到主流社会文化的理解和尊重.     

基督教历史观的辩证解读——以莫尔特曼神学观之

本文以线与点、开端与终结、内在与经世、时间与空间等四个要点,结合德国神学家莫尔特曼的神学思想,对基督教历史观进行辩证地解读,以示基督教历史观的独特性,从中可以看到,基督教历史观是线性发生史观、终末史观、三一史观与神秘史观的综合体。     

Christian Ethics In Jewish Terms: A Response to David Novak

While appreciating the illuminating qualities of Novak's account of natural law, Hauerwas also regards it as problematic precisely because of the unhealthy tension that remains between Novak's claim regarding the inseparability of theology and ethics, on the one hand, and his contention that the Noachian laws may 'be taken to be a universal requirement'of human reason, on the other. Hauerwas' central reservation is that Novak's account is the danger of abstracting from the law's sanctifying intent; i.e., its purpose to form a holy people. A consequence for Jewish-Christian dialogue, then, is a misplaced concentration on the role of the law in these respective traditions rather than different understandings of sanctification between (and within) these respective traditions.     

Paul Christian - A Jewish Dominican Preaching for the Jews

The so-called Barcelona disputation of 1263 was one of the earliest Jewish-Christian disputations in medieval Europe. The disputants were Paul Christian, a Jewish convert to Christianity and member of the Dominican order, and the well known Jewish sage Ramban (Rabbi Moses ben Nahman of Gerona). In the disputation Paul Christian used an innovative method: he attempted to prove the truth of basic Christian dogma, for instance that the Messiah had already come, by using classical Jewish texts, especially the Talmud. Paul Christian used the same method in his sermons which the Jews in the area were forced to listen to. When one analyses the arguments he employs, it becomes obvious how he alludes to both Jewish and Christian traditions in order to convince his listeners.