Covenantal Nomism Revisited

Abstract

I have made two large-scale proposals about what we call for convenience first-century which actually covers more than a hundred years on either side of the year 1 CE. The more recent proposal is a book called Judaism: Practice and Belief, which appeared 1992, and I shall mention it first. I suggested that there was such a thing as Common Judaism, which included most Jews the ancient world. Whatever their differences, they shared several practices and beliefs. Common Judaism is defined by a laundry list of beliefs and practices running from monotheism through Sabbath observance to sacrifice the temple Jerusalem (while it still stood).2 The other proposal appeared 15 years earlier, 1977, a book called Paul and Palestinian Judaism. There I suggested that all the main bodies of Palestinian Jewish literature (except 4 Ezra) between approximately 200 BCE and 200 CE reflect a common understanding of how a works. I called this a pattern of religion and defined it as how getting and staying in were understood.3 The basis of the