Recent from talks
Hyam Maccoby
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Hyam Maccoby
Hyam Maccoby (Hebrew: חיים מכובי, 1924–2004) was a Jewish-British scholar and dramatist specialising in the study of the Jewish and Christian religious traditions. He was known for his theories of the historical Jesus and the origins of Christianity.
Maccoby was a Domus Exhibitioner in Classics at Balliol College, Oxford University. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Signals. Maccoby was librarian of Leo Baeck College in London. In retirement he moved to Leeds, where he held an academic position at the Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Leeds.
Maccoby considered the portrayal of Jesus given in the canonical gospels and the history of the early Church from the Book of Acts to be heavily distorted and full of later mythical traditions, but he claimed that a fairly accurate historical account of the life of Jesus could still be reconstructed from them.
Maccoby argued that the real Jesus was not a rebel against the Jewish law but instead a Jewish Messianic claimant whose life and teaching were within the mainstream of 1st-century Judaism. He believed that Jesus was executed as a rebel against the Roman occupation of Judaea. However, he did not claim that Jesus was the leader of an actual armed rebellion. Rather, Jesus and his followers, inspired by the Tanakh or Old Testament prophetic writings, were expecting a supernatural divine intervention that would end Roman rule, restore the Davidic Kingdom with Jesus as the divinely anointed monarch and inaugurate the Messianic age of peace and prosperity for the whole world. Those expectations were not fulfilled, and Jesus was arrested and executed by the Romans.
According to Maccoby, Barabbas, from the Aramaic Bar Abba, "Son of the Father", originally referred to Jesus himself, who was called thus from his custom of addressing the Father as Abba, "Father", in his prayers, or else as a form of the rabbinic honorific Berab.
Many of the disciples of Jesus did not lose their hopes; they believed that Jesus would soon be miraculously resurrected by God, and continued to live in expectation of his second coming. Their fellowship continued to exist in Jerusalem as a strictly-orthodox Jewish sect under the leadership of James the Just.
In 2012, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach wrote Kosher Jesus in which he drew on past work by Maccoby.
According to Maccoby, the founding of Christianity as a religion separate from Judaism was entirely the work of Paul of Tarsus. In this Maccoby's view is largely based on that of Heinrich Graetz.
Hub AI
Hyam Maccoby AI simulator
(@Hyam Maccoby_simulator)
Hyam Maccoby
Hyam Maccoby (Hebrew: חיים מכובי, 1924–2004) was a Jewish-British scholar and dramatist specialising in the study of the Jewish and Christian religious traditions. He was known for his theories of the historical Jesus and the origins of Christianity.
Maccoby was a Domus Exhibitioner in Classics at Balliol College, Oxford University. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Signals. Maccoby was librarian of Leo Baeck College in London. In retirement he moved to Leeds, where he held an academic position at the Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Leeds.
Maccoby considered the portrayal of Jesus given in the canonical gospels and the history of the early Church from the Book of Acts to be heavily distorted and full of later mythical traditions, but he claimed that a fairly accurate historical account of the life of Jesus could still be reconstructed from them.
Maccoby argued that the real Jesus was not a rebel against the Jewish law but instead a Jewish Messianic claimant whose life and teaching were within the mainstream of 1st-century Judaism. He believed that Jesus was executed as a rebel against the Roman occupation of Judaea. However, he did not claim that Jesus was the leader of an actual armed rebellion. Rather, Jesus and his followers, inspired by the Tanakh or Old Testament prophetic writings, were expecting a supernatural divine intervention that would end Roman rule, restore the Davidic Kingdom with Jesus as the divinely anointed monarch and inaugurate the Messianic age of peace and prosperity for the whole world. Those expectations were not fulfilled, and Jesus was arrested and executed by the Romans.
According to Maccoby, Barabbas, from the Aramaic Bar Abba, "Son of the Father", originally referred to Jesus himself, who was called thus from his custom of addressing the Father as Abba, "Father", in his prayers, or else as a form of the rabbinic honorific Berab.
Many of the disciples of Jesus did not lose their hopes; they believed that Jesus would soon be miraculously resurrected by God, and continued to live in expectation of his second coming. Their fellowship continued to exist in Jerusalem as a strictly-orthodox Jewish sect under the leadership of James the Just.
In 2012, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach wrote Kosher Jesus in which he drew on past work by Maccoby.
According to Maccoby, the founding of Christianity as a religion separate from Judaism was entirely the work of Paul of Tarsus. In this Maccoby's view is largely based on that of Heinrich Graetz.