Dr. Mark W. Weisstuch
Wednesdays, 6:30 - 8:00 PM
4/27, 5/4, 5/11, 5/18, 5/25, 6/1
$180, $120 for Temple Emanu-El members
OFFERED VIRTUALY
Paul: Radical Convert or Lifelong Jew?
Jews have long viewed the apostle Paul as our New Testament archenemy. Because of his outreach to Gentiles driven by vicious diatribes against Jews and Judaism, he is identified as the progenitor of theological anti-Judaism and its popular first cousin, anti-Semitism. If Paul is the founder of Christianity, as he is often said to be, he created a new religion by condemning, slandering and disparaging the one he was born to and abandoned.
But recent Pauline scholarship — The New Perspective — proposes that Paul remained a Jew throughout his life and contends that his critique of Judaism, which emphasized its universal character, was distorted by later Christian theologians who sought to drive a definitive wedge between Christians and Jews.
This course will explore this complex, intense and controversial figure, the thought-world of his time and the message of his writings, which resonate with continued relevance and significance for Jews and Christians today.
Hortense Jordan Chair in Ethics
212.507.9580 | EmanuelStreickerNYC.org