Exploring the scripturesque : Jewish texts and their Christian contexts / / by Robert Alan Kraft.

• Superior document: Supplements to the Journal for the study of Judaism, v. 137
• Author: Kraft, Robert A.
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Language: English
• Series: Supplements to the Journal for the study of Judaism ; v. 137.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (324 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

These essays span about a third of a century and include both previously published and some unpublished studies by Robert A. Kraft which focus on interfaces between Jewish materials and the worlds in which they were transmitted and/or perceived, especially Christian contexts. The initial section on general context and methodology is followed by several detailed studies by way of example. The final section touches on some related issues involving Philonic and other texts. The primary concern is with \'scripturesque\' materials and traditions, whether they later became canonical or not, that seem to have been respected as “scriptural” by some individuals or communities in the period prior to (or apart from) the development of an exclusivistic canonical consciousness in some Jewish and Christian circles.

Table of Contents

General context and methodology. The pseudepigrapha in Christianity ; The pseudepigrapha and Christianity, revisited : setting the stage and framing some central questions ; Christian transmission of Greek Jewish scriptures : a methodological probe ; The weighing of the parts : pivots and pitfalls in the study of early Judaisms and their early Christian offspring ; Combined review : The Old Testament pseudepigrapha, edited by James H. Charlesworth; The apocryphal Old Testament, edited by H.F.D. Sparks -- Selected specific studies. Reassessing the "recensional problem" in Testament of Abraham ; "Ezra" materials in Judaism and Christianity ; Towards assessing the Latin text of "5 Ezra" : the Christian connection ; Enoch and written authorities in Testaments of the 12 patriarchs ; The Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila and its echoes of Judaism -- Some related studies. Pliny on Essenes, Pliny on Jews ; Philo on Seth, Philo on Enoch ; Philo's treatment of the number seven in On creation ; Philo and the Sabbath crisis : Alexandrian Jewish politics and the dating of Philo's works ; Tiberius Julius Alexander and the crisis in Alexandria according to Josephus.