| Abstract
|
:
|
The literary ideological and theological controversy conducted by Jewish and Christian intellects resulted from foundational tenets that stood in antagonistic confrontation. The rabbinic Sages held that ontological Torah, as the receptacle of divine utterance, was the instrument by which God forged the universe, the means of perpetual revelation to Israel and the fountainhead of power to create the society of renewed believers who would usher in the Messianic Age when Israel would become the fifth world kingdom. Ecclesiastical spokesmen re-presented Jesus, the vessel of God's Word in a person, the divine source of creation, revelation and salvation, as Torah's replacement. The unbridgeable chasm between these positions occurred in large part from conflicting understandings of the same biblical passages. It constitutes the theoretical basis for this dissertation, which proposes a reading, governed by literary and historical aspects, of Jewish self-understanding from an early to mid-fifth century C.E. rabbinic perspective of a group of isolated texts from the classical midrashic compilation, Genesis Rabbah. These literary fragments, thematically linked into a whole by the ontologized Torah motif that had developed in Jewish literary history, display fundamental rabbinic thought concerning the heartbeat of their world, Torah and Torah study. The reading derives from setting the traditions in a dialogic, intertextual relationship with a selection of Christian writings that exhibit similar imagery, metaphysical language and a congruence of thought that communicate the orthodox view of the transhistorical Jesus from a variety of church ideologists. The historical era in which the redactor(s) framed Genesis Rabbah saw the consolidation of the momentous religious revolution that began with Constantine's recognition of Christianity in the early fourth century C.E. This remarkable rise from persecuted sect to imperial religion presented unprecedented circumstances to the Sages. No belief system had ever hailed itself as “true Israel.” No group had espoused the abrogation of Torah, nor had a faith been able to appeal to the testimony of a historical situation to buttress its claims. The serious threat suggests the necessity for a stand in defense of Torah, and therefore, of Israel's self-understanding, identity and the nation's very social existence.
|