Starting from the position that Celsus’ Jew is a real Jew and that he is (probably) quoting from a Jewish anti-Christian tract produced in Alexandria in the mid-second century CE, this essay explores the sources of Celsus’ knowledge of Judaism, not only the LXX but non-biblical sources as well, and assesses what Celsus might tell us about the Jewish community in Alexandria after the revolt under Trajan, and its relationship with emerging Christianity in the same city. It questions the standard claim that the Jewish community in Alexandria was obliterated when the Romans suppressed the revolt.

Christianity and Judaism as we know them today can both be traced back to the richly diverse Judaism that flourished in Palestine in late Second Temple times, but it was only after 70 CE that the two traditions began to define themselves over against each other in mutually exclusive ways. The period between the First Jewish Revolt (66–74 CE) and the Bar Kokhba war (132–135 CE) – the period in which much of the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers was written – was crucial in this development. The aim of this study will be to throw light on this parting of the ways. It will outline briefly what we know about Rabbinic Judaism in Palestine and synagogal Judaism in the Diaspora at this time, and then read against this picture the references to Jews and Judaism in the Apostolic Fathers, especially in the Epistle of Barnabas. What Barnabas shows is a Christianity that sharply differentiates itself from Judaism, but at the same time does not want to sever all ties. It wants to hold on to the Jewish Scriptures as word of God, but through a process of allegorization to appropriate them as Christian Scripture.

INTRODUCTION

The indigenous Christian population of the West Bank is a shrinking, historically fragmented community whose contribution to civil society outweighs its small size. The theme of this essay is these Christians’ unique contribution in a context that nevertheless seems set to squeeze them increasingly out of their homeland. We say “squeeze,” as the major sources of pressure arise from two directions, both Jewish and Muslim. From the Jewish side, the challenge arises from the consequences of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. From the Muslim side, the challenge arises from the growing influence of the radical Islamic movements. Corruption within the Palestinian Authority (PA) also appears to have created an economic and social situation in the country that many Palestinian Christians refuse to tolerate, choosing instead to vote with their feet.

Much has been written on this topic, and it is not our purpose to provide a synthesis of the secondary literature. Within the framework of Georgetown's Christianity and Freedom Project, our mandate is to provide fresh fieldwork on the current situation, situated within a broader grasp of the contemporary scenario.

As such, the paper is set out as follows: A brief introduction by Phil Sumpter will provide the historical, social, and political context. The next section, authored by Duane Miller, will describe the findings of our fieldwork, which is the prime focus of this essay. This fieldwork is based on a two-week sojourn in the West Bank, where we interviewed representatives of the various traditional churches about the challenges their communities face and the responses that are being provided. In both sections, the authors have been in dialogue with one another so that our ideas have been mutually influential.

OVERVIEW: INDIGENOUS CHRISTIANITY IN THE CONTEMPORARY WEST BANK

Historical Overview

The decisive event that has shaped the contemporary context is the war of 1948, called the War of Independence by (Jewish) Israelis and the Catastrophe (al Nakba) by Palestinians. In short, the General Assembly of the United Nations had adopted a proposal for the political future of the region in 1947, which envisioned the existence of two states side by side, an Arab state and a Jewish one (the Jews were to receive some 55 percent of the country [much of the allotted area being desert] and the Arabs about 40 percent).

Introduction

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is one of the leading causes of blindness in the developed world, with an incidence of 1:500 in patients aged 55–64, and 1:8 in patients over 85 [1]. Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is an inherited disease blinding about 1 in every 4000 individuals much earlier in life [2]. In both of these conditions the photoreceptor layer degenerates, while the inner retinal neurons survive to a large extent [3–5]. Electrically activating these neurons provides an alternative route for visual information and raises hope for the restoration of sight to the blind.

In a normal retina, photoreceptors convert light into neural signals that are processed by inner retinal neurons, leading to generation of action potentials in the retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). These signals travel to the brain through the optic nerve and serve as the basis for visual perception. Electrical stimulation of the retina with microelectrodes can also produce action potentials in RGCs, creating spatially patterned percepts of light called phosphenes. Indeed, recent clinical trials with retinal prosthetic electrode arrays have restored visual acuity to subjects blinded by retinal degeneration up to 20/1200 using epiretinal placement (facing the ganglion cell side) [6], and up to 20/550 with subretinal implantation [7]. While this serves as an important proof of concept with clinically useful implications, existing retinal prosthesis designs have a number of shortcomings.

AN UNUSUAL HOMILY

Pesikta rabati 34, on the eschatological vindication of the Mourners for Zion, is one of the most remarkable homilies in one of the most remarkable of the rabbinic midrashim. It belongs to a series of piskaot, or ‘chapters’, composed for the seven ‘Sabbaths of Consolation’ following the Ninth of Av. This liturgical setting is important and gives the piska a polemical edge: its rhetoric is strong, challenging the congregation to identify with the Mourners so as to be sure of sharing in their end-time reward. Within the homilies in Pesikta rabati associated with the Ninth of Av (26–37), Piskaot 34–37 have long been regarded as forming a distinctive group. Certainly 34 and 36–37 hang together thematically in a notably coherent way, but, as Goldberg has argued, we should probably detach 35. Yet we should be careful not to harmonize the three related piskaot too systematically together: despite their striking agreements it is not at all obvious that they are by the same darshan (homilist). Significant differences include the fact that while 36 adopts an astonishingly universalistic stance—its messiah bears the sins of the world—34 focuses in more traditional fashion on the redemption of Israel. These piskaot have received a lot of scholarly comment, from Dalman, Bamberger, Goldberg, Fishbane, and others, and in particular their doctrine of the suffering and atoning messiah has engendered sharp debate. While we would no longer be as confident as Scholem in identifying political messianism as normative for Judaism, there can be little point in denying that the ideas adumbrated here are not mainstream: one has only to compare them with the messianism of a core text like the Amidah to make the point.

CHRISTOLOGY

The parallels with Christology are obvious, and the question of Christian influence inevitably arises. Christianity may be somewhere in the background, but I am inclined to agree with Fishbane that the doctrine advocated here can just as easily be seen as an inner-Jewish development. We must not allow apologetics to lull us into thinking that Judaism after 70 CE became uninterested in theology or theologically impoverished: the theological richness and creativity of later Judaism remained undimmed. After all, as Christians have always argued, the Christian doctrine of the atonement can be rooted in Jewish tradition. Our homilists could easily have tapped into the sources on which Christianity drew.