Early Jewish-Christian Writing

Abstract

A N examination of the Jewish Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Pirke Aboth reveals features which apparently were prevalent in Judaism contemporary with early Christianity. When this is followed by an examination of early Christian literature, one finds that these Jewish features occur much more frequently in some works than in others. The inference is that documents and pericopes containing many Jewish features were probably Jewish-Christian in origin, i.e., written by Jewish-Christian authors. Careful reading of documents from the pens of gentile Christians, such as the Epistle of Barnabas and Justin's First Apology and Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, reveals that their authors accepted some Jewish ideas, but nevertheless avoided other Jewish ideas and attitudes. At times gentile Christians interpreted the Jewish Scriptures or applied Jewish ideas in ways which are not found in either the Jewish or the Jewish-Christian writings of that period. Thus the writings of the Jewish Christians of the first and second centuries possess certain characteristics which are relatively rare in the literature of the gentile Christians of the same period. After the middle of the second century the line of distinction becomes much less definite. After that date gentile Christians accepted more Jewish ideas, largely as the result of (1) the gradual acceptance of the authority of New Testament books and (2) the dwindling of the friction between Judaism and Christianity. Some scholars believe that certain early Christian books, both within and without the New Testament, were written by Jewish Christians. Other scholars believe that the