Jewish Christian Research Articles

Book Review: Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts. Edited by Matt Jackson-McCabe. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007. Pp. x + 389. Paper, $35.00

Book Review: Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts. Edited by Matt Jackson-McCabe. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007. Pp. x + 389. Paper, $35.00

Rethinking Jewish Christianity: An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category (to which is Appended a Correction of my Border Lines )

Rethinking Jewish Christianity:An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category (to which is Appended a Correction of my Border Lines) Daniel Boyarin (bio) Keywords Daniel Boyarin, Oskar Skarsaune, Reidar Hvalvik, Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries, Matt Jackson-McCabe, Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups, Jewish Christianity, early Judaism, soggenante, Ioudaismos Reflections occasioned by Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik, eds. Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2007. Pp. xxx + 930. Matt Jackson-McCabe , ed. Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2007. Pp. x + 389. It is not just to be clever that I have appropriated Michael Williams's title;1 I want to suggest that the argument for dismantling the one (Gnosticism) is startlingly similar to the argument for dismantling the other (Jewish Christianity). Adding Karen King's important insights into the comparative mix,2 I would say that the term "Jewish Christianity" always functions as a term of art in a modernist heresiology: It is a marker of the too Jewish side of the Goldilocks fairytale that is "ordinary" Christianity, to cite for the moment Oskar Skarsaune's heresiological terminology.3 I propose that any definition of "Jewish Christianity" implies an entire theory of the development of early Christianity and Judaism,4 and I will [End Page 7] sketch out such a theory that, if accepted, virtually precludes, in my opinion, any continued scholarly usefulness for the term. Two recent essays introducing two volumes of new thinking on the topic of sogennante Jewish Christianity exemplify for me the pitfalls of using this terminology itself, even in the hands of very critical writers indeed. My case for abandoning this term is an argument in three movements. In the first movement, I will present evidence and discuss evidence already given for the claim that there is never in premodern times a term that non-Christian Jews use to refer to their "religion," that Ioudaismos is, indeed, not a religion (this term to be defined), and that consequently it cannot be hyphenated in any meaningful way. In the second movement, I will try to show that the self-understanding of Christians of Christianity as a religion was slow developing as well5 and that a term such as "Jewish Christian" (or rather its ancient equivalents, Nazorean, Ebionite) was part and parcel of that development itself and thus eo ipso, and not merely factitiously, a heresiological term of art. In the third movement, I will try to show that even the most critical, modern, and best-willed usages of the term in scholarship devolve willy-nilly to heresiology. If my arguments be accepted, there should be as little justification for continued use of the term "Jewish Christianity" as a scholarly designation as there is for the term "heresy" itself (except as the very object of heresiological discourse). 1. There is No Judaism It seems highly significant that there is no word in premodern Jewish parlance that means "Judaism." When the term Ioudaismos appears in non-Christian Jewish writing—to my knowledge only in 2 Maccabees—it doesn't mean Judaism the religion but the entire complex of loyalties and practices that mark off the people of Israel; after that, is used as the name of the Jewish religion only by writers who do not identify themselves with and by that name at all, until, it would seem, well into the nineteenth century.6 It might seem, then, that Judaism has not, until some time in modernity, existed at all, that whatever moderns might be tempted to abstract out, to disembed from the culture of Jews and call [End Page 8] their religion, was not so disembedded nor ascribed particular status by Jews until very recently. In a recent article, Steve Mason has decisively demonstrated that which other scholars (including the writer of these lines) have been bruiting about in the last few years, namely, that there is no "native" term that means "Judaism" in any language used by Jews of themselves until modernity,7 and, moreover that the term Ioudaioi is almost never, if ever, used by people to refer to themselves as "Jews."8 In a fascinating and [End Page...

Augustine as Revolutionary?: Reflections on Continuity and Rupture in Jewish–Christian Relations in Paula Fredriksen's Augustine and the Jews

Augustine as Revolutionary? Reflections on Continuity and Rupture in Jewish-Christian Relations in Paula Fredriksen's Augustine and the Jews PAULA FREDRIKSEN. Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defence of Jem and Judabm. New York: Doubleday, 2008. Pp. 488.THIRTY OR FORTY YEARS AGO, the most divisive issue in the study of ancient society and culture was the degree to which in the Second Temple and talmudic periods (circa 450 B.C.E. to 650 CE.) operated within the bounds of a single unified authoritative framework. Some scholars explained the conspicuous variation in belief and practice attested in the sources as relatively minor deviations from a more or less cohesive system of religious norms (as reflected perhaps in the writings of the rabbis). Others, however, viewed this diversity and even pluralism as the original and enduring condition of religious practice in antiquity, despite the strident insistence of a handful of ancient sectarians to the contrary. At this point, all but a very few have abandoned the proposition that ancient Jews functioned within or even had the notion of a normative Judaism governed by a systematic set of theological beliefs - though many now would also wisely refrain from speaking of multiple Judaisms as wholly discrete cultural or sociological systems.1The current generation of scholars, by contrast, is far more riven by a different, though equally perennial, historiographical conundrum, namely, the problem of historical continuity, change, and rupture. The past ten years have seen increasingly heated debates concerning the degree to which institutions, practices, and discursive categories were repeatedly and fundamentally transformed in antiquity at key moments of historical disjuncture. Can we indeed still speak usefully of as an essentially continuous, if always evolving, phenomenon? Thus, we find in recent - especially North American - scholarship the conspicuous recurrence of such terms as beginnings, rupture, making, and invention. Novel forms of identity are called - or interpellated - into existence. Rather than forming the fabric of a continuous religious and cultural system known as Judaism, Jewish tradition is unmasked as a discursive strategy, the name under which historical change masquerades.2To take two prominent recent examples: in a series of books and articles, Daniel Boyarin has argued that the gradual consolidation of a Christian orthodox establishment and the concomitant production of the specifically Christian discourses of orthodoxy, heresy, and religion did not merely provide the background for the emergence of as formulated by the rabbis of Late Antiquity but were the prime engines in this process.3 According to Boyarin, at least from a certain analytical vantage point, we can productively say that rabbinic was invented by Christianity as elites, over the course of Late Antiquity, engaged with - and, ultimately, refused - the hegemonic logic of imperial, orthodox Christianity. Complementarily, though in a rather different academic idiom, Seth Schwartz has advanced the equally provocative thesis that, from the second to fourth centuries, Jewishness formed at best a vestigial element in the social identities of the now highly Romanized and provincialized ethnic Jews of the Mediterranean basin, but under the often heavy-handed auspices of imperial Christianity its fragments were - somewhat paradoxically - reconstituted into a new and newly robust form of communal identity.4 In Schwartz's analysis, the disembedding of the Jews from the increasingly Christianized Roman imperial system of the late fourth to sixth centuries was critical to the emergence of as a radically new type of religious, social, and cultural formation.Of course, not all historians of ancient would endorse such sweeping, even extravagant narratives of social and cultural rupture. …

New Books across the Disciplines

“New Books across the Disciplines” is a bibliographic resource that facilitates a cross-disciplinary survey of recent publications. Its scope ranges from late antiquity to the seventeenth century. Coverage is comprehensive for the large majority of North American and British publishers. Other European titles are included whenever received. Books are classified under variable topical headings and listed alphabetically by author's name. Entries include complete bibliographical data and annotations. With few exceptions, books appearing here have been published within the previous two years. Many will be presented here before they are ordered and shelved by libraries. The topics for this issue include: Editions and translations Reference Biographical studies Mapping space Contact cultures Jewish studies Christian saints and professions Family and the everyday The marvelous Visual culture Narrative structures, lyric effects Essay collections

Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts. Edited by Matt Jackson-McCabe. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2007. x + 389 pages. $35.00.

Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts. Edited by Matt Jackson-McCabe. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2007. x + 389 pages. $35.00.

Jewish Christian Dialogue: Drawing Honey from the Rock

Jewish Christian Dialogue: Drawing Honey from the Rock

Matthew and His World: The Gospel of the Open Jewish Christians: Studies in Biblical Theology

Matthew and His World: The Gospel of the Open Jewish Christians: Studies in Biblical Theology

Beyond convivencia: critical reflections on the historiography of interfaith relations in Christian Spain

While Américo Castro’s convivencia remains an influential concept in medieval Iberian studies, its sway over the field has been lessening in recent years. Despite scholars’ best efforts to rethink and redefine the concept, it has resisted all attempts to transform it into a workable analytical tool. The article explores the malaise affecting convivencia, and suggests that the idea has become more of an impediment than a help to medieval Iberian studies. It argues that convivencia retains some of its former influence because scholars insist on understanding it as a distinctly Ibero‐Islamic phenomenon. However, this article suggests that the evidence for Islamic influence on interfaith coexistence in Christian Spain is scarce. Instead of continuing to embrace the nationalist myth of Spain’s unique status in medieval Europe, scholars need to acknowledge the basic similarities in the Christian treatment of religious minorities north and south of the Pyrenees. The article also explores other aspects of convivencia’s problematic legacy: polarization of the field between “tolerance” and “persecution,” and the inattention to the nuances of social and political power relations that affected Jewish–Christian–Muslim coexistence in Christian Iberia.

Matthew and His World: The Gospel of the Open Jewish Christians: Studies in Biblical Theology

Matthew and His World: The Gospel of the Open Jewish Christians: Studies in Biblical Theology

Jewish Christian Dialogue: Drawing Honey from the Rock

Jewish Christian Dialogue: Drawing Honey from the Rock

Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts, edited by Matt Jackson-McCabe

Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts, edited by Matt Jackson-McCabe

From Q to ‘Secret’ Mark: a Composition History of the Earliest Narrative Theology. By Hugh M. Humphrey

Pp. v, 170 , New York/London , T&T Clark , 2006 , £16.99 . Humphrey builds on the work of Marie-Émile Boismard and Delbert Burkett in positing an earlier version of Mark's gospel that was employed by Matthew and Luke (rather than the Q source directly) and which was different from the present canonical text; Humphrey's hypothesis is simpler and more elegant than those of his predecessors, however, and more theologically persuasive. There was no written Q, but rather ‘a stable complex of Jesus’ sayings … widely known among the early Christian churches' (p. 40). Mark was most likely an educated Alexandrian Jew familiar with the Septuagint and the Wisdom of Solomon who learned the traditions about Jesus early, perhaps in the 30's, within a decade of Jesus' death. He went to Rome and ‘interpreted’ for Peter, composing a narrative line of what he heard concerning separate incidents in Jesus' ‘words and deeds’. This text would have had a ‘low’ Christology: Jesus is the ‘Righteous One’ of Wisdom, commissioned by God and led by God's Spirit. He is the ‘teacher’ preaching reform in view of the nearness of the Kingdom and subsequent judgment by a (distinct) Son of Man. The emperor Claudius expels the Jews (and Jewish Christians) from Rome in 49; before he leaves, Mark is prevailed upon by Gentile Christians to compose a second document based on Peter's preaching against Simon Magnus, an anti-gnostic text that stresses Jesus' humanity, which becomes the passion narrative concerning his death and resurrection, interpreted as the opening of the kingdom of heaven for those who would live as he lived, a salvation now promised beyond this life. Peter sends Mark back to his home territory of Alexandria where Mark becomes the first bishop. He brings with him copies of both documents and in Egypt assimilates them to what became our canonical gospel, in the process (due to the Neronian persecution and intrafamilial betrayals) discovering the true ‘secret’ of the kingdom previously hidden: a focus on discipleship as modelled on Jesus' total self-giving and obedience to the Father, even to the point of death, which contradicts earlier Jewish anticipations and which the ‘twelve’ never understood. Mark dies in 62, before Peter in 65. Mark had simplified as well as combined his two documents; Matthew and Luke are familiar with his earlier narratives, and where they agree against (present) Mark, they are including pieces he had allowed to drop away.

The Link Between the Jewish–Christian Polemic and the Masorah Notes in Rashi’s Bible Commentary

This article demonstrates how Rashi integrated the Masorah into his commentaries, utilising it in order to bolster the strength of his own ideological claims pertaining to the Jewish–Christian polemic. By relying upon the Masorah, Rashi lent credibility to his interpretations, even when they diverged from the simple meaning of the verse, for instance, when Rashi privileged exegetical-midrashic interpretations, encouraging his suffering people and refuting Christian claims, and when Rashi offered an alternate reading for verses that might have been interpreted as alluding to or substantiating Christian beliefs. Thus Rashi explained that shiroh (Ps. 42:9) does not mean his song; rather, it emphasises the Shekhinah ’s continued presence (literally, dwelling) within Israel; ḥerev (Songs 3:7–8), the sword of the priests, is the Masorah; be-suri (Hos. 9:12) is not besarai me-hem ; and neither le-ḥelkah nor ḥelka’im (Ps. 10:8, 10) alludes to the humbled and downtrodden Israelites.

Living Together, Living Apart. Rethinking Jewish–Christian Relations in the Middle Ages – By Jonathan Elukin

Living Together, Living Apart. Rethinking Jewish–Christian Relations in the Middle Ages – By Jonathan Elukin

Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts. Edited by Matt Jackson-McCabe. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 2007. x + 391 pp. $35.00 cloth.

Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts. Edited by Matt Jackson-McCabe. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 2007. x + 391 pp. $35.00 cloth.

Book Review: Jewish Christians

Book Review: Jewish Christians

Challenges in Jewish–Christian RelationsAitkenJ. K.KesslerE. Challenges in Jewish–Christian Relations Paulist PressMahwah, NJ, 2006, vii, 282, $24.95ISBN 0809143925

Challenges in Jewish–Christian RelationsAitkenJ. K.KesslerE. <i>Challenges in Jewish–Christian Relations</i> Paulist PressMahwah, NJ, 2006, vii, 282, $24.95ISBN 0809143925

Living Together, Living Apart: Rethinking Jewish-Christian Relations in the Middle Ages. By Jonathan Elukin

In Living Together, Living Apart: Rethinking Jewish-Christian Relations in the Middle Ages, Jonathan Elukin provides an extended historiographic corrective to the study of medieval and early modern Jewish–Christian relations throughout Europe. Specifically, he challenges scholars to rethink the meanings behind Christian expulsions and persecutions of the Jews and the impact that these incidents had on Jewish understandings of their environment and relationships with their Christian neighbors. He chastises scholars for continuing to focus on persecution as a dominant theme in Jewish–Christian relations despite Salo Baron's nearly eighty-year old exhortation to the contrary. Elukin suggests that the tendency to see the long-term expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 as the terminus ad quem for medieval Jewish history has blinded scholars to the continuities in medieval and “early modern” Christian–Jewish relations in other parts of Europe—for example, Germany—where Jews continued to live well into the sixteenth century. Persecutions and the threat of expulsion remained; however, Jews and Christians continued working and celebrating together.

Rethinking Early Jewish—Christian Relations: Matthean Community History as Pharisaic Intragroup Conflict

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) Anyone interested in the religio-ethnic identity and social location of the community/communities that produced the Gospel of Matthew must contend not only with multilayered composition but also with the complex reception history of this text.1 While the Gospel was used by groups identifying themselves as Jewish, it also served the needs of people with a non-Jewish identity who actively opposed a understanding of religion.2 Interestingly, these two seemingly irreconcilable uses of the Gospel of Matthew are reflected in modern theories regarding the identity of the community behind the text: some scholars argue that Mattheans were well within the boundaries of (intra muros),3 that the author was a non-Jew writing for a community that had parted ways with the (extra muros).4 Within and between these two positions, there are numerous interpretations varying in both methodological approaches and conclusions.5 The purpose of the present study is to outline a social-scientific approach to the question of the nature and status of the group(s) that transmitted, redacted, and wrote down the traditions included in the Gospel. I shall begin by noting some problematic terms and categories that, in my opinion, confuse the discussion and may lead to inaccurate conclusions. After having identified the type of religion evidenced by the text and having related that religious type to the question of ethnic identity, I shall examine tensions between the Mattheans and society generally, on the one hand, and between Mattheans and Pharisees more specifically, on the other. In order to proceed, it will be necessary to reconstruct and analyze first-century institutions of importance to the Mattheans from a social-scientific perspective: we need a body to locate a soul.6 I will argue that, while Mattheans were initially part of the Pharisaic association, the community that authored the Gospel was in the process of leaving the larger collectivity after the war of 66-70 C.E. Tensions between the Mattheans and society generally seem to have been comparatively low, both before and after 70; relations between the Mattheans and other Pharisees, however, were more complex and negative, with tensions increasing drastically after 70 C.E. The final sections will provide detailed as well as more general arguments supporting this reconstruction of the Matthean community and its history. Essential to the present interpretation of the social location of the Mattheans is Ed Sanders's well-argued case for a common Judaism in first-century society, as well as his and others' insistence on the limited influence of the Pharisees in that society.7 I. THE RELIGIO-ETHNIC IDENTITY OF THE MATTHEAN COMMUNITY Theories regarding the religio-ethnic identity of the Mattheans are many and varied, from scholars who see their community as excluding non-Jews to those who argue for an exclusively non-Jewish community-and several positions in between.8 Since it is human to think in categories and concepts, and these tend to create boxes limiting our horizons, it is necessary to address the question of terminology in order to take the discussion further.9 Most often, Matthean scholars speak of Matthean identity in terms of binary opposites, whereby Jesus and the disciples/the Mattheans/Christianity/the church are at one end of the spectrum, and Jews/Israel/Judaism/the synagogue at the other.10 A close reading of the Gospel, however, suggests that such distinctions are not found in the text, but rather imposed on it from other ancient or modern sources. Once such false opposites are removed and authentic opposites mapped, many of the traditional conclusions about the relationship between Mattheans and others in the Gospel are proved problematic. Furthermore, the very terms Jewish Christianity and/or Jewish Christians must also be mentioned as problematic, since they tend to obscure what they intend to denote, namely, a belief in Jesus as the Messiah embodied in communities existing within the religious system of Judaism. …

Jewish Opposition to Christians in Asia Minor in the First Century

Abstract This study examines the reasons for the opposition of the Jews of Roman Asia Minor to the Jewish Christian missionaries and their teaching. It will be seen that while theological convictions played a significant role, the opposition in the local synagogues cannot be explained only with reference to the Jews' zeal for the law and for the purity of the Jewish community. The available evidence, particularly of Josephus, suggests that the Jews of Asia Minor were concerned to preserve the social and political rights and privileges that they had enjoyed since Julius Caesar, which had come under pressure in different places at different times and which would be threatened if pagans joined the community without being asked to submit to circumcision and to other Jewish traditions such as the food laws. Concerns about the financial viability of the local Jewish community and about the relationship with the Jewish commonwealth in Judea may have played a role as well.