CTR

The prevailing readings of the Antioch incident depend upon a number of assumptions about the relevant context, including more than a few that remain unexamined, on which several central interpretive decisions about Paul's language depend. These include a fundamental conflict between Pauline and Jerusalem- or Jewish-based Christ-following groups and, following from this, that the mixed meal-time gathering Paul discussed was not conducted according to Jewish dietary norms, but instead according to Pauline and thus presumably non-Jewish standards: that is, when Paul accused Peter and the other Jews involved of “living like Gentiles,” Paul not only thought that they should do so, but that this consisted of behavior like eating without regard for Jewish dietary halakhah. Such traditional as well as New Perspective approaches might be classified as based on and leading to “Paul, not Judaism” readings. This essay challenges these and similar assumptions and related decisions by conduc...

The New Testament is basically a collection of Jewish texts written during a period when the Jesus movement was still part of the diverse Judaism of the first century. Therefore we should expect to find examples of rabbinic biblical interpretation in the New Testament. This article suggests that the apostle Paul used midrash to create an interpretation of Gen 15:6 that allowed Gentiles to be included into the covenant without prior conversion to Judaism (Romans 4:1-12). It is argued that James, the brother of Jesus, in his interpretation of the same verse (James 2:14-24) also used midrash in order to create an interpretation that contradicted that of Paul. It is likely that this reflects an intra-Jewish debate concerning the salvation of the Gentiles. While the majority of Jews within the Jesus movement neither seem to have agreed that Gentiles were not to become Jews, nor were they obliged to observe the Torah, Paul’s solution of including the Gentiles into the covenant may have be...

E. P. Sanders’ reconstruction of ancient Judaism resulted in an increasing interest in Paul’s relation to Judaism. While scholars before Sanders commonly assumed that Paul converted to Christianity and thus developed a religious identity separate from Judaism, Sanders’ view of Judaism as a religion of grace forced scholars to problematize Paul’s relation to his religious identity. Three major scholarly trends can be distinguished. Some scholars maintain, in spite of Sanders, that Paul rejected Judaism and developed a ‘Christian’ identity of sorts. Others take an intermediate position, arguing that Paul only repudiated those parts of Jewish tradition that separated Jews from non-Jews while otherwise being basically faithful to his religious heritage. Finally and most recently, still other scholars argue that Paul remained fully Jewish after becoming a follower of Jesus and that, consequently, he never developed a religious identity separated from Judaism.

If Christianity had never emerged and become a world religion, the discussion of a "within Judaism perspective" would presumably never have occurred. If the early Jesus movement had never become more than an insignificant, even marginalized, group within first-century Judaism, historians would most likely have considered Jesus-followers as precisely that-a somewhat odd, Jewish, apocalyptic, messianic group that easily could be located within the universalistic currents of Second Temple Judaism. I find it highly improbable that any historian of religion would have come up with the idea that the early Jesus movement should be regarded as something other than a Jewish phenomenon. Odd, yes, but not odder than the Qumran community, the Zealots, the Sicarii, and later, the Karaites or even rabbinic Jews.

Dialogue between Islam and Christianity is of great importance today. Some people consider Islam as the enemy of the World. At the same time the Muslim fundamentalist groups consider themselves as the only true Islam struggling against injustice and the western capitalist world order. The encounter between Islam and Christianity in Egypt is of great importance because these religions have coexisted there for centuries. Today Egypt has a key role as to religious and cultural matters in the Arab world as well as in the Sunni Muslim world concerning fundamentalist and various secular conceptions.
This work deals with this encounter in contemporary Egyptian history. It is about the attitudes that result from the discourse on the encounter of the religions in different periods of contemporary Egypt.
Which circumstances have influenced the encounter of religions in contemporary Egyptian society?
How have the best-known theologians and theological schools been influenced by these circumstances concerning the relation between Islam and Christianity on one hand and the Egyptian state on the other?
Which are the methods used in the dialogue? Who is pursuing this dialogue?
Which are the possibilities of further development?
In my work I will analyse some Christian and Muslim theologians and ideologians who have exerted great influence on Arab thinking. As to Christians I will consider among others Ghrighourious, Shenouda III, Matta El Meskeen, Coptic exile authors and George Bibawi. As to Muslims I will consider among others a course book at the al-Azhar University, al-Zahabi, Shaltut, al-Banna. Qutb, al-Qaradawi, Hassan al-Hudaybi and Khalid Muhammad Khalid.