Product Description
Now in paperback, The Reluctant Parting is a poignant look at the New Testament exploring the forgotten question of intention and identity in Christianity’s core writings– How did Jesus’s followers stop being Jewish without meaning to? While other books have demonstrated the “Jewishness” of Jesus, none have grappled with the implications of the New Testament authors’ relationship to their own Judaism. The Christian New Testament has led a life never imagined by i… More >>
The Reluctant Parting: How the New Testament’s Jewish Writers Created a Christian Book
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I am quite surprised at the failure of Galamabush (as I am with some other recent writers) to be aware of the top scholarship done on this very topic way back in the 1960s and 1970s. I was an attendee at a series of Lectures (1970s)given by Jacob Jervill in J’lem to a mixed, international group of world-class N.T. scholars on the subject of how long the early Church was in reality Jewish. Does G. not know this material?? I attended, as a girl, an Episcopal College Prep school— graduates of the Univ. of Chicago were our instructors for Bible and Theology classes, and I graduated from Yale Divnity School in the 1970’s.So I am well aware — and always was–of the best and most recent work in this field. I understand that Galambush holds a fairly prestigious position, but I do not understand where she has been for the last 30 or 40 years. None of this is new to those of us who studied at the sources and cutting edge of New Testament Studies. She should be embarrased to be claiming that this is new, or that ”no one” has done this work before. She know better — I hope.
This might be a good book for a Sunday School class or lay reading group, but DO NOT claim that G. is doing groundbreaking work. She is presenting material threshed out a good generation ago.
Rating: 3 / 5
The author says the book is for Jewish readership, but I can’t imagine why anyone Jewish or otherwise would be much interested in it. It’s not based on historical or biblical scholarship, but more like a long sermon in conjunction with a retelling of the books of New Testament (I guess for people who don’t want to read them for themselves.) No footnotes or endnotes, (only references to Scripture) so no sources for her information or explanation of conclusions. She seems completely oblivious to the tremendous amount of scholarship and research done in this area over the last decade. There’s no reason to believe she’s ever heard of Earl Doherty, Alvar Elleg?rd, Richard Carrier or several hundred other scholars who have published on this topic. Two major sects, the Essenes and Gnostics are each mentioned exactly once (pages 10 and 275 respectively.) This is like describing events leading up to the world wars and overlooking Germany and England. No mention of Tacitus, one of Pliny (she means The Younger, but may not know there were two.) one of Suetonius (p.185.) Josephus who wrote a 21-volume history of the Jews gets only four mentions, while G.W. Bowersock, the modern historian of late antiquity, gets none. The author doesn’t appear to be especially knowledgeable or have any real sense for the age, but apparently felt a need to write about it. I admit the one-star is harsh, but the book both misleads the reader and pretends to an authority it simply doesn’t have.
Rating: 1 / 5
Examining the New Testament through a Jewish lens offers many fresh insights and has been undertaken by a number of scholars and clerics in recent years, most targeting Christian audiences and some, in the process, raising considerable controversy. (Think of Episcopal Bishop John Spong’s reading of the gospels as midrash, from which he concluded that not only was Mary not a virgin, she might have been a victim of rape or sexual abuse, speculation that got him pilloried from conservative pulpits across the country.) Galambush’s approach developed from her work with a synagogue study group, and while not principally intended for Christian audiences would clearly enlighten and benefit many Christians who take for granted what sounds like casual (or vehement) anti-Semitism in the New Testament, even as it provides for Jewish readers clarity on the roots of many modern Christian attitudes that cause interfaith problems. The book is thoroughly scholarly but entirely accessible to non-academic readers – highly recommended.
Rating: 5 / 5
This book provides a very interesting Jewish reading of New Testament texts. Galambash brings novel insights and interpretations to this story of the Christian break with Judaism, taking advantage of her personal history.
It is weaker on the “reluctant parting” itself. This parting was a historical event, but the book is organized around the NT texts and not around that event (or process). This means that Galambash doesn’t really provide the sequence, implications and perceived meanings of the reluctant parting in any coherent narrative. The main sources for the parting are, of course, the NT texts, and Galambash discusses them in semi-chronological order, distinguishing types of texts (gospels, epistles, revelation) and trying for a more or less chronological discussion within each type. But that’s not the same as a real chronological narrative.
As a result, I suspect this book will be more interesting to Bible study groups than to readers of a more historical bent. If you’re looking for a straight history, it’s at most three stars because of a weak grounding in the larger literatures. But it succeeds as a novel approach to familiar gospel.
Rating: 4 / 5
I am truly mystified by the negative comments written about this book by other reviewers. Some of the complaints just don’t hold any water. For those complaining it’s not scholarly enough–well duh, it wasn’t written for an academic audience, but a trade audience. For those who said it wasn’t groundbreaking– did the book claim to hold groundbreaking new discoveries? No. Its strengths lie precisely in carrying known research into the deeper implications of faith– for Christians and Jews alike. For those who say they don’t believe there’s a Jewish audience– did you even read the introduction, where she said the book was born out of questions where she was teaching at synagogue? She knows exactly why Jews don’t want to have anything to do with the NT, but the questions were there nonetheless.
People have a lot of nerve impugning the credentials of someone with a PhD in OT Studies from Emory and an MDiv from Yale just because the book didn’t cover everything they thought it should. As far as I’m concerned, the most important audience for this book is those who want to enrich their understanding of the NT– and particularly to understand that the worst anti-Semitism of the Christian Church grew out of later misunderstandings (and/or deliberate misreadings) of the texts, all originally written by those who identified as Jewish. A particularly important book for interfaith families, The Reluctant Parting bridges gaps in understandings and helps unite us all as people of the Book.
Rating: 5 / 5