Language:
English
Year of publication:
1999
Titel der Quelle:
Harvard Theological Review
Angaben zur Quelle:
92,4 (1999) 465-478
Keywords:
Simon, Marcel,
;
Jews History To 500
;
Christianity and antisemitism
Abstract:
Simon's theological work "Verus Israel" (1948) was an attempt, impelled by the prewar upsurge of racism and the Holocaust, to reexamine the nature of the relationship between ancient Christianity and Judaism. Simon suggested that ancient Christian anti-Judaism grew out of a competition between the two groups for the souls of possible proselytes; it was not a conflict between two truths. Simon tried to overcome Christian theological prejudice against Judaism (which was depicted as a "legalistic" and "ritualistic" religion); yet, he is tainted sometimes with the very anti-Judaism that he claimed to oppose. His theory that the Jews of late antiquity were engaged in missionary activities was criticized by modern historians. With all that, Simon's "conflict theory" is an important tool for understanding the relations between early Christians and Jews.
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