A Jew in Celsus' True Doctrine? An examination of Jewish Anti-Christian polemic in the second century C.E

Abstract

One of the major obstacles to presenting a more balanced assessment of Jewish-Christian relations in the 2nd century C.E. is the virtual absence of Jewish literary sources for the period. Though Jews figure prominently in the writings of the 2nd century Church Fathers and later Christian Apologists, it is becoming increasingly evident in scholarship that these texts portray Jews in a tendentious manner, often reveal more about Christian self-definition than they do about either Jews or Judaism, and tend to talk at Jews more than they talk with Jews. Nevertheless, there is one oft-neglected work that might help to remedy these problems and contribute to a better understanding of Jewish perceptions of Christianity in the 2nd century. There is reason to believe that embedded within Celsus' True Doctrine are authentic Jewish arguments against Christianity. This article presents a source-critical analysis of Celsus, analyzing the nature of Celsus' debt to 2nd-century Jewish sources and their significance for Jewish-Christian relations at that time.