Alfred Edersheim--19th Century Jewish/Christian Scholar

One of the books I am reading right now is Sketches of Jewish Social Life by Alfred Edersheim. I cannot overstate how valuable Edersheim's scholarship can be to understanding the Bible, especially the New Testament. When we pick up the Bible, even the New Testament, we are reading a Jewish book, written by Jewish authors steeped in Jewish culture and history, men who followed first-century Jewish thought patterns. It is essential to understand this, and them, in order to more fully understand what they wrote. As I read this book, passage after passage of the New Testament is revealed in new light and old familiar passages become fresh and interesting again as I realize I never quite fully grasped them before. Perhaps I will give an example or two of this later.

Here is a bit about Alfred Edersheim copied and pasted from his Wikipedia page:

Edersheim was born in Vienna of Jewish parents of culture and wealth. English was spoken in their home, and he became fluent at an early age. He was educated at a local gymnasium and also in the Talmud and Torah at a Hebrew school, and in 1841 he entered the University of Vienna. His father suffered illness and financial reversals before Alfred could complete his university education, and he had to support himself.

Edersheim emigrated to Hungary and became a teacher of languages. He converted to Christianity in Pesth when he came under the influence of John Duncan, a Church of Scotland chaplain to workmen engaged in constructing a bridge over the Danube. Edersheim accompanied Duncan on his return to Scotland and studied theology at New College, Edinburgh and at the University of Berlin. In 1846 Alfred was married to Mary Broomfield. They had seven children. In the same year he was ordained to the ministry in the Free Church of Scotland. He was a missionary to the Jews at Iaşi, Romania for a year. On his return to Scotland, after preaching for a time in Aberdeen, Edersheim was appointed in 1849 to minister at the Free Church, Old Aberdeen. In 1861 health problems forced him to resign and the Church of St. Andrew was built for him at Torquay. In 1872 Edersheim's health again obliged him to retire, and for four years he lived quietly at Bournemouth. In 1875 he was ordained in the Church of England, and was Curate of the Abbey Church, Christchurch, Hants, for a year, and from 1876 to 1882 Vicar of Loders, Bridport, Dorset. He was appointed to the post of Warburtonian Lecturer at Lincoln's Inn 1880-84. In 1882 he resigned and relocated to Oxford. He was Select Preacher to the University 1884-85 and Grinfield Lecturer on the Septuagint 1886-88 and 1888-89. Edersheim died at Menton, France, on March 16, 1889.

His writing is not just educational, it is also devotional, as befits the Christian writing of his time-period. His most famous work was/is The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. I have this one also, as well as his The Temple--Its Ministry and Services and Bible History--Old Testament. When I am finished with Sketches of Jewish Social Life I am going to pick up Life and Times.

Here is an interesting note from Sketches:

'A few further quotations bearing on the dignity of labour may be appropriate. The Talmud has a beautiful Haggadah, which tells how, when Adam heard this sentence of his Maker: "Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee," he burst into tears. "What!" he exclaimed; "Lord of the world, am I then to eat out of the same manger as the ass?" But when he heard these additional words: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," his heart was comforted. For herein lies (according to the Rabbis) the dignity of labour, that man is not forced to, nor unconscious in, his work; but that while becoming the servant of the soil, he wins from it the precious fruits of golden harvest.'--Alfred Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life, Updated Edition, Hendricksen Publishers, p.176