From Anti-Judaism to Anti-Semitism: Ancient and Medieval Christian Constructions of Jewish History - Softcover

Chazan, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1316606597 ISBN 13: 9781316606599

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2017

Synopsis

From its earliest days, Christianity has viewed Judaism and Jews ambiguously. Given its roots within the Jewish community of first-century Palestine, there was much in Judaism that demanded Church admiration and praise; however, as Jews continued to resist Christian truth, there was also much that had to be condemned. Major Christian thinkers of antiquity - while disparaging their Jewish contemporaries for rejecting Christian truth - depicted the Jewish past and future in balanced terms, identifying both positives and negatives. Beginning at the end of the first millennium, an increasingly large Jewish community started to coalesce across rapidly developing northern Europe, becoming the object of intense popular animosity and radically negative popular imagery. The portrayals of the broad trajectory of Jewish history offered by major medieval European intellectual leaders became increasingly negative as well. The popular animosity and the negative intellectual formulations were bequeathed to the modern West, which had tragic consequences in the twentieth century. In this book, Robert Chazan traces the path that began as anti-Judaism, evolved into heightened medieval hatred and fear of Jews, and culminated in modern anti-Semitism.

About this title

Review

'Chazan's book offers valuable insight into the changing historical and social context of these Christian views of Judaism. ... Highly recommended for upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars in European history and Christianity.' Bob Seltzer, CHOICE

'In a period when the Internet spreads these calumnies globally, when Saudi Arabia can denounce al-Jazeera as a front for 'the Jews', and when criticism of Israeli policies can provide respectability for good old fashioned anti-Semitism, Chazan's study makes for sobering reading. The roots of Christianity may lie deep in Judaism, but the roots of anti- Semitism, alas, lie deep in Christianity.' Paula Fredriksen, Review of Biblical Literature

Book Description

Chazan analyses how during the second half of the Middle Ages, damning imagery of Jews and Judaism proliferated, with a subsequent impact on broader Christian thinking about the trajectory of Jewish history. Portrayals of the Jewish past and future offered by major intellectual leaders, once ambiguous, became increasingly negative.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1316606597
• ISBN 13: 9781316606599
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 270