>The CFP described Judaism as one of the "three most apocalyptic religions."
>It is not at all apparent from the CFP that the conference was interested
>in apocalyptic themes as they developed within Judaism. There certainly
>were apocalyptic movements within Judaism, but none of them became the main
>stream, as the CFP seems to suggest.
that really depends on your definition and scholarship. if we had changed it
from apocalyptic to eschatological would that have been okay? do the Jewish
Wars of 66-70 and the Bar Kochba revolt of 130-5 count as apocalyptic? how
many false messiahs and failed rabbinic calculations does it take to make a
religion apocalyptic? since virtually no rabbi would have denied the
expectation of the messiah and the raising of the dead for judgment (two
classic apocalyptic themes) it seems fair to say that Judaism is *at least*
eschatological, and probably apocalyptic at some fundamental level.
>From a scholarly perspective, a
>presupposition is dangerous because it tends to be accepted without
>argument, when it may actually turn out to be false. I suggest that the
>wording of the CFP creates just such a presupposition which I believe is
>demonstrably false. I confess to poor scholarship in my assumption as to
>the cause.
i will take responsibility for the poor wording, although even at that level
i object to the term "demonstrably false."
Richard Landes
Boston University
History Department
Center for Millennial Studies
http://www.mille.org/
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