”The Separation of Early Christianity from Judaism”

27/07/2010: Maison générale - Rome

This days the book  that began life as my Ph.D. thesis arrived at Nostra Signora di Sion  and Maureen  brought it over  to ‘Villa Maria.’ There was great excitement, especially as it had arrived in time for the Chapter delegates to share my joy at seeing it in print. The original version took six years to complete and ten years for a publisher to accept it.  In the space of a few minutes after lunch some people saw the book and then Valdete danced  with it in the Chapter room and I was invited to join her as everyone congratulated me. My hope is that it will fulfil a need  in our search for the origins of how the relationship  between Judaism and Christianity went so badly wrong. Knowing the cause of a breakdown  in understanding can help towards finding  a solution.

This book covers an enormous amount of material on the relationship between early Christianity and Judaism, but presents this in a highly accessible manner, clearly showing how the separation between the two emerged over time.

It also reveals the ways they continued to be related. It pinpoints two pervasive issues that impelled the separation: the relationship of the early church to Jewish law and the increasing divinization of Jesus.

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