Description:
<jats:p>Marcel Simon (1907–1986) wrote many articles and published a number of books during a long, active career as a scholar. Yet he remains most prominently associated with the first of his books,<jats:italic>Verus Israel</jats:italic>, initially submitted as a dissertation. Published in 1948,<jats:italic>Verus Israel</jats:italic>was revised with the addition of a lengthy post-script in the original French in 1964, and translated into English in 1986. Based on research virtually complete before the war, this book is an outstanding example of new circumstances forcing scholars to revise their conceptions of the past. As Simon explains in the preface, his book is a response to the calamity of racist anti-Semitism. Although this anti-Semitism had been apparent even before the Second World War, its disastrous results had become painfully evident only in the war's aftermath. These were the issues that led Simon to re-examine the nature of the relationship between ancient Christianity and Judaism.</jats:p>