Intellectual Foundations of Christian and Jewish Discourse

This volume argues the Judaic and Christian heirs of Scripture adopted, and adapted to their own purposes and tasks, Greek philosophical modes of thought and argument, and explores how the earliest intellectuals of Christianity and Judaism shaped a tradition of articulated conflict and reasoned argument in the search for religious truth that was to be shared through continuing that argument with others. Professors Chilton and Neusner examine, using the formative sources of Judaism and Christianity, the literary media of adaptation and reform: precisely where and how we identify in the foundation writings of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism, the new opposing modes of articulated conflict and reasoned argument that through Christianity and Judaism, Greek philosophy and science bequeathed to the West. This volume provides an analysis of the genesis and evolution of Judaeo-Christian intellectual thought and identifies the modes of discourse in the Judaic and Christian intellectual and literary traditions.

'Readers will be impressed by the clear and profound levels of analysis provided by both authors.' u Religious Studies

Jacob Neusner is Distinguished Research Professor of Religious Studies at the University of South Florida and Professor of Religious Studies at Bard College New York. Bruce Chilton is Bernard Idding Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College, New York.