I'm planning to write my paper for my Medieval Christianity course on the differences between the Christian and Jewish interpretations of a specific Old Testament book or passage -- I haven't decided which, nor whether I'll be comparing two specific writers, or schools of thought, or general trends, or etc. With NaNoWriMo striking in November, I'm going to try to get some of the research done for the paper this month -- and I'm not sure where to start. The course texts cover social/political/structural trends like the Gregorian reform and the investiture hooha more than they do theology or exegesis, and my instructor isn't familiar with Medieval Judaism at all.
Like I've mentioned on other religion-oriented threads, this period is way outside my specialty; I haven't had a lick of Medieval history until now, except for a Russian history course, and my religious studies knowledge pretty much centers around the first couple centuries of Christianity and, to a lesser extent, the 20th century. So there's very little on my shelf that even has a bibliography I can raid.
Anyone have any recommendations? The texts/authors/etc. have to fall between 400 and 1500 CE (there are separate courses for before and after that window).
― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 6 October 2003 02:54 (twenty-one years ago)
ooooo--how about Song of Solomon? (obvious, with the Christians seeing it as bride of Christ etc and the Jews seeing it in a more, er Shekinah way?? One to look into anyway)
― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 6 October 2003 04:09 (twenty-one years ago)
i do remember a book entitled _The Formation of Christian Dogma_ covering the middle ages in a good way. maybe it will all come back to me later, but i am blanking on the titles. hey if you go to my friendster page and click on my friend Phoebe, she's a medieval history grad student--send her a message and she may be able to help.
― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 6 October 2003 04:15 (twenty-one years ago)
:)
― daria g (daria g), Monday, 6 October 2003 05:21 (twenty-one years ago)
And I'm myself more secure on the first couple of centuries, but... isn't Jerome around the time your course's era starts? He's always good for opinions on scripture; but he might be a little early. The only Christian theological arguments I can think of in the medieval era are transubstatiation, predestinarianism, the humanity of Jesus and the existence of God, and they all but the latter seem pretty gospel-based. Although Pico della Mirandola and the later Christian Cabbalists could be pretty interesting, if you can find much on them - Frances Yates' "Occult philosophy in the Elizabethan Age" has a couple of introductory chapters on them.
Isaiah would, I guess, be the obvious choice for differing interpretations, though I don't know much about Jewish theology of the time and whether there were any, um, for lack of a better word 'millenarian' movements in Medieval Jewry.
It sounds like a really fantastic topic for your paper - good luck with it!
― cis (cis), Monday, 6 October 2003 08:25 (twenty-one years ago)
https://aeon.co/essays/how-an-obscure-oriental-cult-converted-a-vast-pagan-roman-empire
christianity's beginnings
― F♯ A♯ (∞), Tuesday, 7 February 2017 22:32 (eight years ago)
Cheers, would definitely recommend Peter Brown's Through The Eye of a Needle as a pretty approachable and comprehensive book about Rome's early christian aristocracy.
― devvvine, Tuesday, 7 February 2017 22:58 (eight years ago)
same title as my book about the history of diarrhoea
― Islamic State of Mind (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 8 February 2017 00:19 (eight years ago)