Rabbi Jacob Neusner, the Jewish scholar who influenced the writings of Pope Benedict, has died.
Neusner died at his home in Rhinebeck, New York, on Saturday, according to Bard College, where he had taught since 1994. He had suffered from Parkinson's disease. He was 84.
Pope Benedict quotes Neusner in the first volume of his Jesus of Nazareth trilogy. On the release of Neusner's 1993 essay A Rabbi Talks With Jesus, the then Cardinal Ratzinger called it “by far the most important book for the Jewish-Christian dialogue in the last decade.”
