That common era: personal reflections on teaching late antique religions

Judaism, Fall, 1995 by Naomi Janowitz

My interest in Jewish studies began as as undergraduate at Brown University. The religious studies department, and in particular Jacob Neusner, introduced me to the creativity and excitement of the Late Antique period when early Christianity and rabbinic Judaism were emerging. I remain engrossed in the first centuries of the common era, a period when Jews read the biblical stories with new questions, much as we do today, and developed stunning and influential new ways of thinking about their relationship with divinity. In those years Jews did not have the advantage of hindsight to help them figure out what would become "Judaism" and what would ultimately end up being labeled "Christianity."

Later, as a Jew pursuing a Ph.D. in the Department of Early Christian Literature, I found myself thinking more actively about the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. There were not many choices for students wishing to study Late Antique Judaism. I had chosen this program because New Testament scholarship has been the source of many methods used in studying ancient religions and their texts. The stereotypical picture of Judaism held by many of my teachers and my fellow students matched the ignorance about the New Testament I found in the Jewish adult education classes I taught. (Ironically, in my graduate program I felt as much an outsider being a woman as being a Jew.)

As I finished my dissertation I found myself teaching at the University of Notre Dame, the only scholar of Judaism in a religious studies department of 36. To represent a complex, centuries-old tradition to an entire campus was a sobering experience, and I was on the defensive more often than I had expected. Tired of listening to attacks on the "vengeful God of the Old Testament," I once called for the creation of a new field called Yahweh-ology, patterned on the traditional notion of the study of Mary, "Mariology," this version directed at the liberation of the God of the Hebrew Scriptures. I found that some of my students had never met a Jew before. My favorite story then circulating on campus was the story of an undergraduate who, informed that Jesus had been Jewish, paused in bewilderment for a while and then stated, Jesus may have been Jewish but the Holy Mother certainly wasn't!"

I continue my interest in adult education, now adding Christian groups to my usual Jewish audiences. There is a great thirst for learning in today's Jewish community, evident in the boom in adult education. In these settings I feel and see, in a more direct manner than in the university classroom, the benefits of reconsidering the relationship between Late Antique Judaism and early Christianity. Christians, as we saw in the case of the Notre Dame student, are fascinated, if poorly educated, about the Jewish roots of Christianity. Jews too have spent a great deal of energy, for good reason no doubt, in sidestepping the question of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity and the mutual influences. But the American Jewish community is maturing, and Jewish studies does not have to be a knee-jerk defense of Judaism. Instead adults, at least, are hungry for more sophisticated visions of Judaism over the centuries.

When I first came to the Davis campus I taught one or two courses a year in Jewish Studies, including a course on Hebrew Scriptures, which was called Old Testament (the argument being that students would not know what Hebrew Scriptures are, a view with a surprising degree of validity). This was the totality of Jewish studies on campus after a small Hebrew program was canceled when the soft money dried up. All of this has changed in the past two years and the reasons are two-fold. First, faculty interest has grown tremendously, and we now have a regularly meeting discussion group, where it turns out that many people are already doing something that can be called "Jewish studies." The other reason is that outside support has come to our aid. The Koret and Osher Foundations, the local community, and alumni are giving us the support we need to build a serious program. This year we have a new lecture series, an innovative intersegmental Hebrew program shared with Sacramento State University, and several new courses. I am coteaching with the professor of African religions a course entitled "Native and Diaspora: Judaism and African Religions." African religions have survived and adapted in diaspora settings for centuries, just as Judaism has. This offers us a valuable opportunity to compare what happens to religious traditions as they develop far from the homeland, how those in the homeland relate to their diasporic counterparts, and other issues, all of which have implications for the present communities.

Students who will not approach any other Jewish "institution" will come to these lectures and courses. Dialogue that happens no place else and is so crucial to the future of our democracy, will happen in these courses. Our small program -- by far the smallest of those represented on our panel -- has much to offer, not only to the university community but to the adult community at large. In turn it is the enthusiasm of the general community, translated into the vital monetary support, which will permit me to come back soon with a longer report about an even more extensive program.