Who killed Jesus? The Jewish-Christian Polemic in Late Antiquity

Did the Jews kill Jesus? What is the resurrection going to look like? Who is Jesus’ father and is his mother really a virgin? How many gods are there? Who is a martyr? These questions and others stood in the heart of vehement polemics between Jews, Christians, Hellenes and Romans in the first centuries of the Common Era. In this course we will survey the main polemics, the means of argumentation and the various responses as they appear in rabbinic, Jewish Hellenistic and Christian literature, and through them we will study the interaction between the various communities of this era.

This course has three main objectives. First, surveying the main theological polemics between Jews and Christians in the first centuries of the Common Era, the different communities of this period, the mutual influences and the ways in which the borders between them were drawn. Second, exposing the students to primary sources used in the study of late antiquity, starting from Jewish-Hellenistic literature, such as the writings of Josephus and Philo, through the Dead Sea Scrolls, rabbinic literature and early Christian writings. Third, exposing the students to a variety of research methods, critical reading of secondary literature and analysis of primary sources.