How Jewish Was Jesus? -- 26th Annual Brown-Lyons Lecture

No biography is worth reading or even possible to write in a vacuum--if it avoids the larger setting of times, places, and traditions. The life of Jesus cannot be understood without placing him within his world of Palestinian Judaism under Roman occupation in the first half of the first century. The fluidity of Judaism, its multiple variations long before the "oral law" evolved into the written Mishnah, provides extraordinary revelations about the nature of the Jewish Jesus. Given the diverse context of his culture and what we tend to know of his actions and beliefs, how Jewish was Jesus? Even with the diversity of Judaism, however, did he go so far beyond its boundaries that it would be difficult to consider him genuinely Jewish? Join us for a lecture by Dr. Jack D. Spiro. A reception will be held immediately following the lecture.

Date: March 24, 2011
Time: 7:30 p.m.

Location:
W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts
922 Park Avenue, Richmond, VA 23284

This event is generously sponsored by the VCU Friends of the Library, the VCU Center for Judaic Studies, the Jewish Community Federation of Richmond, the Richmond Jewish Foundation, and the Weinstein JCC. The event is free and open to the public. Parking is available for a fee in the West Main Street and West Cary Street parking decks. If special accommodations are needed, please call (804) 827-1165 or (804) 828-0593 prior to Mar. 22, 2011. For questions or comments, please e-mail Antonia Vassar at vassaram@vcu.edu or Kimberly Separ at krsepar@vcu.edu.

For further information, please see:
http://www.library.vcu.edu/events/blyons/