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Challenge and Response: Pesiqta Derab Kahana, Chapter 26 as an Oblique Reply to Christian Claims

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Lou H. Silberman
Lou H. Silberman
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University, The University of Arizona
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Extract

Some years ago in an examination of the text noted above, I hypothesized that it could well be a response to some Christian theological position being set forth and argued against Judaism in Galilee in the fourth and fifth centuries. My choice of doctrine was that of the atonement: Christ's atoning death for the sins of humankind. The chapter, to be dealt with below in detail, is in its entirety an argument for the atoning efficacy of the death of righteous persons, that is, a doctrine of vicarious atonement. The material included centered upon the lesson read in the synagogue on the Day of Atonement, the sixteenth chapter of Leviticus. This details the ritual procedures that were to take place once a year on the tenth day of the seventh month in the cult center, in order to expiate for the ritual uncleannness and acts of rebellion, that is, “all the sins of the people.” It concludes with the words: “This shall become a rule binding on you for all times, to make for the Israelites once a year the expiation required by all their sins.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 79 , Issue 1-3: Christians Among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honor of Krister Stendahl on His Sixty-fifth Birthday , July 1986 , pp. 247 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1986

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References

1 Pesikta de Rav Kahana (ed. Mandelbaum, Bernard; 2 vols.; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962) 383–400.Google Scholar

2 Wilken, Robert L., John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late Fourth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).Google Scholar

3 ibid., 132.

4 ibid., 136.

5 ibid., 151.

6 “Toward a Rhetoric of Midrash: A Preliminary Account,” in Polzin, Robert and Rothman, Eugene, eds., The Biblical Mosaic, Changing Perspectives (Philadelphia: Fortress; Chico, CA; Scholars Press, 1982) 15–26Google Scholar; “A Theological Treatise on Forgiveness: Chapter Twenty-three of Pesiqta de Rab Kahana,” in Petuchowski, J. and Fleischer, Ezra, eds., Studies in Aggadah, Targum and Jewish Liturgy (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1981) 95–107.Google Scholar

7 R stands for Redactor, my supposed creator of the entire work.