These 16 essays hold that Christianity and Judaism were highly interdependent theologically and intellectually long after most modern scholars believe them to be separate. Contributors argue the case in terms of relations in ancient Mediterranean cities, semantic differences, pitfalls in scholarship, and lack of sufficient study of such topics as early subcultures in the second and third centuries, what The Martyrdom of Polycarp says about entangled or parted ways, Christian succession, the Judaic nature of Origen and Jerome, ember days and Yom Kippur, exegetical traditions of the celibacy of Moses, Jewish redemptive history, whether Jewish Christians saw the rise of Islam and such issues as approaches of traditional historiography and category error. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
