Establishing Boundaries ― Christian-Jewish Relations in Early Council Texts and the Writings of Church Fathers

A scholar of ancient history and theology, Boddens Hosang presents a revised version of his 2008 Ph.D. dissertation at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. In it, he explores how the legalization and gradual growth of Christianity within the Roman Empire during the fourth century after the conversion of Constantine impacted relations between Christians and Jews both at the official level of state and church and at the level of individual believers. Among his perspectives are Jews and Christians in the scholarly debate, council texts as a different kind of source material, archaeological and literary evidence for Jews and Christians in Spain before and during the fourth century, the Council of Laodicea, Jewish evidence in Anatolia, the apostolic canons, the text of the Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua, and latter Gallic councils from 465-541. He finds that Christians and Jews continued to be close, and that formal changes in the structure of the church were due not to anti-Jewish sentiment, but a desire to distinguish clearly between the diverging faiths. As usual with Brill, the quality of the book manufacture is excellent. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

F.J.E. Boddens Hosang, PhD (2008) Tilburg University, MA in Ancient History at London University, MA in Theology at the Catholic Theological University Utrecht, after having taught History in international schools, now works as a religious education advisor to Catholic elementary schools in Leiden, the Netherlands, and as a volunteer at the RC Spiritual Centre De Boskant, in the Hague. Recent work includes a review in the Review of Biblical Literature Newsletter (Aug. 2008) and a lecture at the international congress ‘Nostra Aetate Today’ ( Pontifical Gregorian University Rome,Oct. 2005).