Current Projects
New Research Project. Beyond Theology: Ancient Polemics, Identity Formation, and Modern Scholarship
On October 31 2013, the Swedish Research Council announced that it will fund a major research project that three Swedish colleagues—Karin Hedner Zetterholm, Lund University, Magnus Zetterholm, Lund University, and Cecilia Wassen, Uppsala University—and I had applied for.
The total funding for the project, which begins in 2014 and stretches over four years, is 11.3 million Swedish Krona, which is equivalent to US $ 1.7 million.
A brief summary of the project’s focus and aim:
Failure to recognize harshly critical statements about Jews and Judaism in ancient Jewish and Christian texts as being part of the effort to form a Christian identity distinct from Judaism has led to distorted scholarly reconstructions of the emergence of Christianity and its separation from Judaism. Joining an emerging trend in recent scholarship that is reconsidering the early histories of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism, this project aims at 1) exposing weaknesses of earlier scholarship’s reconstruction of the emergence of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism as two separate entities 2) explaining the mechanisms of identity formation behind the polemics in ancient Jewish and Christian sources, and their continued influence on modern scholarship 3) offering a revised reconstruction of the emergence of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism and the interaction between the two during the 1-5 centuries C.E.
Insights gained from these three steps will help explain the rise of powerful theological ideas that continue to shape Judaism and Christianity today, contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms at play in the construction of history and identity in general, and may also prove helpful in analyzing contemporary religious conflicts. The combined expertise of four scholars makes it possible to address a wide range of aspects and phases of the emergence of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism, providing a solid foundation on which to build conclusions.
We are very pleased with the generous support we have received and are eager to get started. The close cooperation that this project will mean for the three universities involved will boost international contacts and build stronger academic networks; this too is part of the vision we have for the project.
Read more about the project in this interview.
An earlier project on identity formation among early Christ-believers, entitled The Judgment of God and the Formation of Christian Identity: Matthew’s Gospel and its Early Reception (2006-2010) and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, yielded several articles and the foundation of a monograph on the Gospel of Matthew. The book, entitled Divine Wrath and Salvation in Matthew: The Narrative World of the First Gospel, was published in 2016.
For other current research: see Research above.
On October 31 2013, the Swedish Research Council announced that it will fund a major research project that three Swedish colleagues—Karin Hedner Zetterholm, Lund University, Magnus Zetterholm, Lund University, and Cecilia Wassen, Uppsala University—and I had applied for.
The total funding for the project, which begins in 2014 and stretches over four years, is 11.3 million Swedish Krona, which is equivalent to US $ 1.7 million.
A brief summary of the project’s focus and aim:
Failure to recognize harshly critical statements about Jews and Judaism in ancient Jewish and Christian texts as being part of the effort to form a Christian identity distinct from Judaism has led to distorted scholarly reconstructions of the emergence of Christianity and its separation from Judaism. Joining an emerging trend in recent scholarship that is reconsidering the early histories of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism, this project aims at 1) exposing weaknesses of earlier scholarship’s reconstruction of the emergence of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism as two separate entities 2) explaining the mechanisms of identity formation behind the polemics in ancient Jewish and Christian sources, and their continued influence on modern scholarship 3) offering a revised reconstruction of the emergence of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism and the interaction between the two during the 1-5 centuries C.E.
Insights gained from these three steps will help explain the rise of powerful theological ideas that continue to shape Judaism and Christianity today, contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms at play in the construction of history and identity in general, and may also prove helpful in analyzing contemporary religious conflicts. The combined expertise of four scholars makes it possible to address a wide range of aspects and phases of the emergence of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism, providing a solid foundation on which to build conclusions.
We are very pleased with the generous support we have received and are eager to get started. The close cooperation that this project will mean for the three universities involved will boost international contacts and build stronger academic networks; this too is part of the vision we have for the project.
Read more about the project in this interview.
An earlier project on identity formation among early Christ-believers, entitled The Judgment of God and the Formation of Christian Identity: Matthew’s Gospel and its Early Reception (2006-2010) and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, yielded several articles and the foundation of a monograph on the Gospel of Matthew. The book, entitled Divine Wrath and Salvation in Matthew: The Narrative World of the First Gospel, was published in 2016.
For other current research: see Research above.
