Peter Schäfer

Scattered throughout the Talmud, the founding document of rabbinic Judaism in late antiquity, can be found quite a few references to Jesus—and they're not flattering. In this lucid, richly detailed, and accessible book, Peter Schäfer examines how the rabbis of the Talmud read, understood, and used the New Testament Jesus narrative to assert, ultimately, Judaism's superiority over Christianity. The Talmudic...

This volume examines Judaism in Palestine throughout the Hellenistic period, from Alexander the Great's conquest in 334 BC to its capture by the Arabs in AD 636. Under the Greek, Roman, and finally Christian supremacy which Hellenism brought, Judaism developed far beyond its biblical origins into a form which was to influence European history from the Middle Ages to the...

A book that challenges our most basic assumptions about Judeo-Christian monotheism. Contrary to popular belief, Judaism was not always strictly monotheistic. Two Gods in Heaven reveals the long and little-known history of a second, junior god in Judaism, showing how this idea was embraced by rabbis and Jewish mystics in the early centuries of the common era and casting Judaism's...