The Intellectual Foundations of Christian and Jewish Discourse: The Philosophy of Religious Argument

by Jacob Neusner, Bruce Chilton

The Intellectual Foundations of Christian and Jewish Discourse argues that the Judaic and Christian heirs of Scripture adopted, and adapted to their own purposes and tasks, Greek philosophical modes of thought and argument. The authors explore how the earliest intellectuals of Christianity and Judaism shaped a tradition of articulated conflict and reasoned argument in the search for religious truth that was to be shared through continuing that argument with others.
Neusner and Chilton examine, using the formative sources of Judaism and Christianity, the literary media of adaptation and precisely where and how we identify in the foundation writings of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism the new opposing modes of articulated conflict and reasoned argument that through Christianity and Judaism, Greek philosophy and science bequeathed to the West.

Genres: Philosophy

200 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Neusner was educated at Harvard University, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (where he received rabbinic ordination), the University of Oxford, and Columbia University.

Neusner is often celebrated as one of the most published authors in history (he has written or edited more than 950 books.)Since 1994, he taught at Bard College. He also taught at Columbia University, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Brandeis University, Dartmouth College, Brown University, and the University of South Florida.

Neusner was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and a life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University. He is the only scholar to have served on both the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. He also received scores of academic awards, honorific and otherwise.