Psalm 45 between Abraham and Jesus: A Palestinian Rabbinic Polemic and Its Shelf Life

This article describes an interpretive shift that occurred in Roman Palestine during the amoraic period (ca. 200-650 CE). It argues that rabbis of this era and in this region began to identify parts of Psalm 45 in light of Abraham as a form of anti-Christian polemic, a way to present Abraham as the...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Berkovitz, Abraham Jacob (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: University of Pennsylvania Press 2024
In: AJS review
Year: 2024, Volume: 48, Issue: 1, Pages: 1-25
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Bible. Psalmen 45 / Judaism / Christianity / Polemics / Abraham, Biblical person / Jesus Christus
IxTheo Classification:BH Judaism
HA Bible
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Description
Summary:This article describes an interpretive shift that occurred in Roman Palestine during the amoraic period (ca. 200-650 CE). It argues that rabbis of this era and in this region began to identify parts of Psalm 45 in light of Abraham as a form of anti-Christian polemic, a way to present Abraham as the Jewish response to Christ. It then shows that this exegetical framework, which originated as a polemic, developed a life of its own. As late antiquity slowly transitioned into the early Middle Ages, some Jews read other parts of the psalm—and then the entire psalm—as pertaining to Abraham.
ISSN:1475-4541
Contains:Enthalten in: Association for Jewish Studies, AJS review
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1353/ajs.2024.a926055