"We believe ... justified by faith" - Peter in Acts and Galatians

In Gal. 2.16 the "we have believed" (episteusamen) probably refers to Jewish Christians (not Jews or only Apostles) like Peter who agree on a commonly agreed gospel. This would suggest that belief in righteousness by faith was not a Pauline invention, but was part of the shared understanding of the Jerusalem church. This counters the assertion of Albert Schweitzer that righteousness by faith was Paul's own articulation which emerged from (a) an antithetical response to the proselytizers who argued for righteousness by works of law, (b) out of exegesis of Hab. 2.4 and Gen. 15.6, and (c) because it is less convoluted than justified by solidarity and union with the Christ. (I should note that Richard Hays and E.P. Sanders also recognize that righteousness by faith is not a uniquely Pauline formulation). But what interests me is that Gal. 2.16 seems to correspond to Peter's speech in Acts 15 at the Jerusalem Council which also refers to believing in Jesus and being saved by faith. In which case, Paul is certainly putting forth an authentic Petrine position in Gal. 2.16 and not a straw man argument nor is he misrepresenting Peter to the Galatians. In other words, the episteusamen of Gal. 2.16 corresponds to the pisteuomen of Acts 15.11!

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Gal. 2.15-16: "We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified" (ESV).

Acts 15.8-11: And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will” (ESV).

Friday is for Ad Fontes - Ebionites

In Against Heresies 1.16.2, Irenaeus says o thte Ebionites:

"Those who are called Ebionites, then, agree that hte world was made by God; but their opinions with regard to the Lord are similar to those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates they use the Gospel according to Matthew only and repudiate the apostle Paul, saying that he was apostate from the Law. As to the prophetical writings, they do their best to expound them diligently; they practice circumcision, perseere in the customs which are according to the Law an dpractice a Jewish way of life, even adoring Jerusalem as if it were the house of God."

Our knowledge of the Ebionites is fragmentary and entirely derived from heresiologies of the early church (esp. Irenaeus and Epiphanius). I for one doubt that there ever was a guy called "Ebion" who kicked the whole thing off. The Ebionites take their names from the Hebrew word for "poor". What is often touted about the Ebionites is two things: (1) They stand in a genealogical relationship with the pre-70 AD Jerusalem church, and (2) Their christology also reflects the christology of the Jerualem church which was non-divine, no virgin birth, and adoptionist, posessionist (Jesus was possessed by the Holy Spirit) and perhaps even angelomorphic. In which case, by the end of the second century (so it goes) the earliest christology is now deemed heretical - as argued by Dunn, Goulder, and Ludemann.

I am not convinced by that. While I think the story of the flight of Jewish Christians to Pella shortly before the Roman siege of Jerusalem is authetic (Eusebius, HE 3.5.3 [see the article on this by Craig Koester]), I doubt the existence of an apostolic line of succession from Pella to Irenaus' account of the Ebionites (Irenaeus may himself be dependent upon an updated version of Justin Martyr's Syntagma). The Ebionites may have evolved out of the post-Pella survivors, but I wouldn't necessarily say that they preserved a specific Jewish Christian line that goes back to Jerusalem of the 30s and 40s. I am far from convinced that the Jerusalem church was (1) anti-Pauline as there was a diversity of views of Paul ranging from individuals such as Peter, James, Barnabas, and John Mark; and (2) I don't see any substantial evidence of an adoptionist or possession christology in the Jerusalem church. Those that try to pin adoptionism on use of Psalms 2, 110 and Rom. 1.3-4 are, I think, barking up the wrong tree.

Origen and Jewish Identity

Robert Wilken's statement about Origen's hermeneutics raised my eyebrow. It is no wonder that by the fourth century it was impossible to both Jewish and Christian: 

It is of the utmost importance for Origen's hermeneutical program that no vestiges of Jewish national life exist within the Land of Israel (The Land, p. 73, emphasis added). 

Brief History of Jewish Christianity, Part Two: James (2.1.1.2)

In the last post on Peter and the Twelve I described how Luke presents the development of the leadership of the church in Jerusalem from being lead by Peter and the Twelve disciples to James and a group of elders (Acts 11:30 [“elders”]; 15:2 [“apostles and elders”]; 21:18 [“James and all the elders”]). Bauckham assumes perhaps rightly that if any of the Twelve remained in Jerusalem at this time they were likely subsumed within this larger body of leadership and no longer functioned as a unique collection of leaders.[1]

.

James was the eldest the four brothers of Jesus according to Mark (6:33; cf. also Gal 1:19; 1 Cor 9:5; Hegesippus in Eusebuis H.E. 2.23.4)) and although there is debate about whether or not these individuals were the offspring of Mary and Joseph it seems likely (cf. Bauckham’s detailed argument and his balanced opinion [2]). It is perhaps for this reason that he exercised authority over the Jerusalem church. That Luke’s picture of James’ role in the affairs of the Jerusalem church is reflective of history is confirmed by Paul and the later traditions about him. Paul recognizes James' unique authority with Peter and John in Galatians 2:9 where he refers to them as the “pillars”. The later traditions about James, which may contain some legendary features, surely reflect the reality of his role. I am thinking of not least the passage from the Gospel of Thomas:

The disciples said to Jesus: “We know that you will depart from us. Who is to be great over us?” Jesus said to them: “Whenever you shall come, you are to go to James the Righteous, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being.”

For other later evidence of James' leadership in the Jerusalem church see also Eusebius, H.E. 2.23.4-7 where among other things James is called the first bishop of the Jerusalem church (cf. also Psuedo-Clementines).

The above quotation not only suggests James’ unique leadership role in the Jerusalem church, but also with the epitaph “the righteous” an essential piety of James is remembered. James was known for his strict adherence to the Torah and was even honored by non-Jesus believing Jews at his untimely and unjust death supposedly at the hands of Ananus the high priest in A.D. 62 (cf. Josephus Ant. 20.197-203; Hegesipus in Eusebius H.E. 2.23. 1-19). Josephus writes, “those of the inhabitants of the city who were considered the most fair-minded and were strict in observance of the Law were offended by this” (Ant. 20.201). This impression of James is confirmed by the letter attributed to him in the New Testament. While there is debate as to whether it was written by James, that it reveals a high regard for the Torah is unassailable (cf. comments in Marcus[3]). And the fact that it was connected to James the brother of Jesus, although the familial relationship is not raised in the letter itself—note the author’s own self designation, “James, the servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Messiah” (1:1), shows at the very least how James was remembered.

Reference to James and Torah-observance leads obviously to a discussion of the controversy at Antioch between Peter and Paul recounted in Galatians 2:11-21 since the occasion seems to have been caused by the arrival of “certain men from James” (Gal 2:12). Furthermore, this controversy is often used as evidence for the supposed division between James and the Jerusalem church (Jewish Christianity) and Paul and his Gentile mission (Gentile
Christianity).[4] We will discuss this in the next post.

[1] Bauckham 2006:67.
[2] Bauckham 1990.
[3] Marcus 2006:91.

[4] Carleton Paget 199; Marcus 2006; Segal 1992.

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Works cited

Bauckham, Richard. 1990. Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church. Edinburgh: T & T Clark.

.

________. 2006. James and the Jerusalem Community. In A History of Jewish Believers in Jesus: The First Five Centuries, ed. Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik:55-95. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.

Carleton Paget, James. 1999. Jewish Christianity. In The Cambridge History of Judaism: The Early Roman Period, ed. William Horbury, W. D. Davies and John Sturdy, 3:731-75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

.

Marcus, Joel. 2006. Jewish Christianity. In The Cambridge History of Christianity: Volume 1: Origins to Constantine ed. Margaret M. Mitchell and Frances M. Young:87-102. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Segal, Alan F. 1992. Jewish Christianity. In Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism, ed. Harold W. Attridge and Gohei Hata, 42:326-51. Leiden ; New York: Brill.

Important sources for Jewish Christianity

Joel Marcus (2006:90, n. 13.) usefully lists the important sources for Jewish Christianity.

I. Texts written by Jewish Christians

(a) Matthew
(b) John
(c) James
(d) Jude
(e) Revelation
(f) Didache 6 or the whole
(g) Pseudo-Clementines (Epistle of Peter, Kerygma of Peter & Ascension of James)
(h) Fragments of Jewish Christian gospels (Gospel of the Nazareans, Gospel of Naassenes, Gospel of the Ebionites, & Gospel of the Hebrews )

II. Historiographic accounts

(a) Acts (6—7; 15; 21:17 26)
(b) Josephus (Ant. 18.63; 20.197 203)
(c) Eusebius (HE 1.7.14; 2.23; 3.27.1— 6; 5.8.10, 5.17, etc)

III. Theological description and responses from opponents

(a) Christian

(1) Galatians
(2) Romans (esp. 14:1—15:13)
(3) Philippians 3:2-7
(4) Justin (Dial. 16, 46-47, 110, Apol. 31)
(5) Ireneus (Haer. 1.26.2; 3.11.7; 3.21.1; 5.1.3)
(6) Tertullian (Carn. Chr. 14, 18; Praescr. 32.3-5; 33.11; Virg. 6.1)
(7) Hippolytus (Haer. prol. 7.8; 7.34.1-2; 9.1-17.2; 10.22.1; 29.1-3
(8) Origen (Hom. Luc. 17; Hom. Gen. 3.5; Comm. Mt., sermon 79; C. Cels. 2.1, 3;5.61, 66)
(9) Eusebius (D.E. 3.5; 7.1)
(10) Epiphanius (Pan. esp. bks 19-31, 51)
(11) Jerome (Ep. 112.13, 16; 125.12.1; Comm. Gal. on 1.11-12; 3.13-14; 5.3; Onom. 112; Comm. Habac. on 3.10-13; Comm. Mt. on 12.2; Comm. Am. on 1.11-12; Comm. Isa. on 1.12; 5.18-19; 8.11-15, 19-22; 9.1; 31.6-9; 49.7; 52.4-6; Comm. Ezech on 44.6-8; Comm. Jer. on 3.14-16; Didasc. apost. and Apost. const. passim)

(b) Rabbinic

m. Sanh. 4.5

t. ‘Avot 13(14).5

t. Hul. 2.20-21

t. Yad. 2.13;

b. ‘Abod. Zar. 16b-17a, 26ab; 27b-28a

b. Ber. 28b-29a

t. Avot. 116ab

b. Sanh. 38b, 107ab

b. Sukk. 48b;

b. Git. 45b

b. Ta’an. 27b

Siphre Numbers 143

Genesis Rabbah 8.9; 25.1

Exodus Rabbah 19.4

Works Cited

Marcus, Joel. 2006. Jewish Christianity. In The Cambridge History of Christianity: Volume 1: Origins to Constantine ed. Margaret M. Mitchell and Frances M. Young:87-102. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brief History of Jewish Christianity, Part Two: Peter and the Twelve (2.1.1.1)

This post is the first of three dealing with the subject of The Jerusalem and Galilean churches and the Jewish mission to Jews (2.1.1) under the larger topic of A Brief History of Jewish Christianity in Palestine and the Diaspora (2.1). The subjects of the posts will be Peter and the Twelve (2.1.1.1), James, the brother of Jesus (2.1.1.2) and Jesus’ other brothers (2.1.1.3)

Luke’s account of the early history of the Jewish believing community in Jerusalem contains a significant amount of ambiguity with respect to the development of the leadership structures of the community. Clearly at first the Twelve function as the center of the Jerusalem leadership with Peter as the chairperson and spokesman so to say. Their leadership can be seen in a number of passages in the first 12 chapters of Acts. Among them are:

(1) The fact that they felt it necessary to appoint a replacement for Judas (1:12-26)
(2) Peter’s Pentecost sermon (2:14-41)
(3) Peter and John’s arrest and appearance before the Sanhedrin (4:1-21)
(4) Annias and Sapphira episode (5:1-11)
(5) Arrest and jailing of apostles (NB: for Luke the “apostles and the “Twelve” are synonyms)(5:17-42)
(6) The Twelve’s appointment of the seven spirit-filled men for ministry (6:2-6)
(7) The apostles sending of Peter and John to Samaria (8:14-15)
(8) Peter and Cornelius’ conversion (10)
(9) Peter and James, the brother of John’s arrest (12)

Still as the narrative progresses through these chapters there are hints that the leadership is in process. First, mention is made of a wider group of leaders. We see this first in the reference in Acts 11:1 to the “Apostles and the brothers”; the later group not however a reference to the actual brothers of Jesus. Again in 11:22 a wider group (the “church at Jerusalem”) is said to have sent Barnabas to Anitoch. Also in chapter 11 the financial gift brought by Barnabas and Saul was given to the “elders”. This process seems to have ended by Acts 15 where James clearly has taken the preeminent role of leadership in the Jerusalem church; see also Acts 21:18. Note that Peter specifically signals him out in Acts 12:17 after his miraculous release from prison.

Second, if Peter is any indication of the function of the wider group of Twelve, then after they are said to have remained in Jerusalem subsequent to the onslaught of persecution (8:1), they appear to be involved in a wider missionary endeavor and marginal in the leadership structure in Jerusalem, although clearly not absent. Peter for example said to be travelling about the country (9:32) and was residing in Joppa in Acts 10. This observation of the missional function of the Twelve seems to confirm my suspicion that the Twelve’s appointment by Jesus had significant functional importance which although Matthew most explicitly emphasizes is clearly not absent in the other Gospels. Matthew’s unique introduction of the Twelve in contrast to Mark and Luke, suggests I think his understanding of the Twelve as having an emissary role. In Matthew’s view, and perhaps now confirmed historically in Acts’ portrait, the Twelve are called the twelve apostles (Matt 10:2) because they were sent by the Davidic King on the official duty of announcing the arrival of the Messianic Kingdom and dispensing the eschatological blessings of that kingdom.[1] Bauckham apparently concurs with this at least in part when he writes,

It seems likely that many members of the Twelve were no longer permanently resident in Jerusalem, as was certainly the case with Peter, while at least one had died (Acts 12:2), James stepped into the leadership gap. Any remaining members of the Twelve would have become members of the college of the elders with whom James presided over the church (Acts 21:18).[2]

While it is possible that some of the Twelve remained in Jerusalem as Bauckham’s last sentence suggests, it seems equally or even more likely to me that they had eventually all scattered on mission in fulfillment of their vocation. Furthermore, if Paul’s reference to the “division of apostolic labor” in Galatians 2:7-9 is correct (and there is no necessary reason to doubt its historical credibility), then it is conceivable that Peter and the Twelve’s primary mission field was the circumcised.

[1] Willitts 2007:119.
[2] Bauckham 2006:67.

Works Cited

Bauckham, Richard. 2006. James and the Jerusalem Community. In A History of Jewish Believers in Jesus: The First Five Centuries, ed. Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik:55-95. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.

Willitts, Joel. 2007. Matthew's Messianic Shepherd-King: In Search of the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel. BNZW. Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Brief History of Jewish Christianity in Palestine and the Diaspora, Part One: Jewish Christian History in the New Testament Period (2.1)

I wish to sketch out a brief history of Jewish believers in Jesus and more specifically Jewish Christians, whom we had defined as those who are ethnically Jewish and maintain a Jewish lifestyle (see point 1 the question of definition in the earlier posts). But it will not be my intention to provide a detailed account of the history of the Jewish believers in Jesus. Instead I wish to make several points that I think are important that arise from our sources, in the first instance the New Testament.

J. Carleton Paget is quite right to state “In the beginning all Christianity was Jewish Christianity”.[1] And even at the earliest stage there is evidence in Luke’s account that there were diverse groupings of Jewish Jesus-believers in Jerusalem, based especially on cultural background. Luke refers to what appears to be two main groups with the terms “Hebrews” (NIV: "Hebraic Jews") and “Hellenists” (NIV: "Grecian Jews") (Acts 6:1). These terms refer to the language and culture of the Jews in question. Those who were so-called “Hellentists” were Diaspora Israelites who had migrated back to Palestine in order to be in the Land and near the Temple. Presumably they were motivated by the desire to more wholly live a Torah-observant lifestyle. Whereas the Hebrews were native born Judeans and Aramaic speakers.[2]

In the history of scholarship on early Christian history since Baur, these two groups have been assumed to be the earliest expression of the ideological divide within Christianity between those who believed in a Torah-free Gospel and those who didn’t, the Hellenists representing the former group and the Hebrews the latter. However, there is no foundation for this viewpoint as Bauckham and others[3] have pointed out and what’s more it is likely that the Hellenists were even more zealous for the Torah than the Hebrews.

It is not recognized enough that Saul of Tarsus was a “Hellentist” since he was a Diaspora Jew born in Tarsus and his first language was likely Greek. His Diaspora Jewish background likely provides the appropriate context for understanding his zeal for both the “traditions of fathers” (Gal 1:14) and for the persecution of the church (Phil 3:6). What’s more it is certainly the reason (either his, his parents or both) for his move to Jerusalem as a young man and perhaps also his study under Gamaliel (Acts 22:3).

The implication of this first observation is that even at the earliest stage, when the only form of Christianity was Jewish Christianity, diversity existed. Later of course the diversity took a pronounced turn when the mission to the Gentiles got underway. At that point a new theological divide arose. It should be recognized that at the earliest stage the diversity was primarily cultural and did not have negative consequences of the later theological division. The problems between the groups seemed to be related to practical "pastoral care" issues--care of widows, etc. Moreover, this latter division did not form along cultural lines, but was the result of a difference in the interpretation of Torah and its application or non-application to Gentiles, a difference which it seems transcended issues of culture creating division even among Hebrews. Presumably the same is true for the Hellentistic Jews, although little evidence is either way is extant, save the Apostle Paul. There is no positive evidence that supports the oft-made claim that the Hellenists were primarily responsible for the Gentile mission after being scattered as a result of persecution (see Acts 8:1).

[1] Carleton-Paget 1999:742.
[2] Bauckham 2006:63.
[3] Bauckham 2006; Hill 1992.

Works Cited

Bauckham, Richard. 2006. James and the Jerusalem Community. In A History of Jewish Believers in Jesus: The First Five Centuries, ed. Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik:55-95. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.

Carleton-Paget, James. 1999. Jewish Christianity. In The Cambridge History of Judaism: The Early Roman Period, ed. William Horbury, W. D. Davies and John Sturdy, 3:731-75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hill, Craig C. 1992. Hellenists and Hebrews: Reappraising Division within the Earliest Church. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

A Response to my esteemed colleague and co-blogger

Thanks to Michael for his longer response to my question and for recognizing not only my professorship, but also my ordination (which by they way he doesn't actually recognize!, since he doesn't believe in ordination).

While I in principle have no problem calling the phenomenon Judeo-Christianity as he suggests, I just don’t see what difference it makes. How does it provide any more clarity and sidestep the same pitfalls of the term “Jewish Christianity”. What’s more, the term “Judeo-Christian” is already used as a synonym for “Jewish Christianity” in current discussions—see the recent book entitled The Image of the Judaeo-Christians in Ancient Jewish and Christian Literature. I don’t think anything is gained by the term.

In addition, I have two further points in response to some of what Mike states. First we can all agree that the term "Jewish Christian/Christianity", and for that matter “Judeo-Christianity”, is a modern construct (not found in ancient literature) and is for many reasons an anachronistic designation for the reality of first-century Church (see Brant's comment below to my initial phrase "Jesus movement"). This is true not least for the decades of the middle to late first century when believers in Jesus were mostly of Jewish ethnicity on the one hand and Gentile God-Fears on the other who would have already been viewed as semi-Jewish. Therefore, we could define Jewish Christianity, and some have, as the Jewishness of early Christianity (see especially Daniélou's work).

Yet, since the time of Baur, Jewish Christianity has been variously defined and in the early days especially as the group who stood opposed to Paul's Gentile mission. This latter aspect for the most part has been jettisoned by recent scholarship, although some continue to propound it (e.g. David Sim). Nevertheless, what has essentially become the consensus is that the components of ethnicity and Jewish practice of certain kinds of believers in Jesus define Jewish Christian and not their perspective on Gentile Torah observance (see Mimouni). Of course on this question there was a wide spectrum of opinion.

Thus, in my view (and more on this in later posts) both Paul and his opponents (those who advocated Gentile conversion to Judaism), should be considered Jewish Christians—ethnically Jewish and practicing Torah (I am of the view that Paul didn’t cease his own halahakic observance in his mission to the Gentiles). On the law for Jews, Paul and the opponents seemed to have agreed. What distinguishes Paul’s type of Jewish Christianity, however, was not his view of the requirements for law observance on the part of Jews, but Gentile law observance. This issue was clearly a live question in the early church.

I prefer Skarsuane’s designation “Jewish believers in Jesus” to designate the ethnically Jewish believers in Jesus generally (including Jews who did and didn’t maintain a Jewish lifestyle) and “Jewish Christians” or Judeo-Christians as those who continue a Jewish lifestyle. See my discussion in an earlier post. Perhaps a further addition to Skarsaune's definition (and Mimouni's for that matter) may be to add that only were there differing Christologies among these groups, but also different perspectives on the status of Gentiles.

Second, I see no reason to wonder, as Mike does, who was more Jewish among the early Christian groups. What exact practices ethnic Jews who believed in Jesus preformed to my mind is not as important as observing who identified themselves (or were identified) as ethnically Jewish and were also recognized as such by particular Jewish communities at the time.

Jewish Christianity Definitions, Whence and Whither?

In response to a question from my buddy and co-blogger the Rev. Prof. Joel Willitts, I'm throwing up a few ideas as to why I don't like the term "Jewish Christianity".

First, at one level ALL Christianity in the first century, to some degree or other, is Jewish Christianity. Even those churches consisting mostly of Gentiles who do not generally observe the Torah still fall under the umbrella of Judaism as the parting of the ways is only in its germinal stages.
Second, and as we all know, defining the term "Jewish Christianity" is like nailing jelly to a wall given the nature of our sources (are Matthew and John Jewish Christian writings, if so, which is more Jewish?; is Gospel of the Nazoreans a rip off from Matthew?), the sociological issue of how to know if someone is in or out of the Jewish group, and pluriform views on adherence toTorah by ethnic Jews and ethnic Gentiles in the early church.
Third, Matt Jackson-McCabe writes: "If we designate 'Christ-believing Jews' those Christ-believing Jews who agree with Paul about the primary identity of Christ-believers and the central definition of the covenant community, then we may want to designate those who he opposes in Philippians and 'those from Jews' as Jewish Christ-believers. The latter expression would then indicate that their primary identity is Jewish; that is, they are most fundamentally faithful adherents to the Mosaic covenant. Their belief in Christ, then, functions within that sphere of identity. Our study indicates that there is so single way - or even two ways - of being a Christ-believer and Jewish in the first century. However Christ-believers understood the mission and work of Christ in relation to Israel and Gentiles varied significantly. There is enough variation among Christ-believing Jews that a single designation for them is misleading, particularly if that label's central function is to distinguish them from Paul or from the Pauline churches. Serious theological issues divided Paul from some other Christ-believers, but some times those on his own side would have been Jews and some times Gentiles and probably nearly always a mixture of the two" (pp. 77-78).
Fourth, I am not a fan of "Christian Judaism" since that sounds like Jewish Muslim or Liberal Evangelical. I think the title "Judeo-Christianity" is a better way of designating Christ-believing Jews who still find their identity (and therefore their praxis) as bound up with the Torah/Covenant while allowing for variation of how that worked itself out in reality.

Richard Bauckham's Jude and the Relatives of Jesus

I remember one afternoon while in Cambridge making my regular pilgrimage to Gallaway and Porter's book store in the city centre to hunt up second hand and over stock books. This particular day I came across the book Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in Early Christianity by Richard Bauckham. At that point I had not considered either the book of Jude or the Relatives of Jesus as of any consequence to my own work. But given my great admiration for Bauckham I picked it up and found a gem. The book is rather poorly titled if you ask me as he states his focus in the first sentence of the book:

"This book is a contribution to the history of Palestinian Jewish Christianity in the New Testament Period."[1]

At least a subtitle such as "A Contribution to the History of Jewish Christianity in the New Testament" would have revealed the central importance of this work.

Only recently have I had occasion to read parts of the book and I am again, as I have so many times by Bauckham's work, struck by the clarity of his conclusions based on detailed research of primary source material.

In the book he studies Jewish Christianity in the NT by considering three topics: (1) the significance of Jesus' family (excluding James) in the early church, (2) the book of Jude and (3) Luke's genealogy. While it is not apparent at least at first how the third point relates to the first two, Bauckham sees Luke's genealogy as offering evidence--along with the letter of Jude--of the theological character of the Christianity of the relatives of Jesus and their circle in the first generation of the church. He has reason to connect the genealogy and the family of Jesus because of the statement by Justin Africanus found in Eusebius' EH 1.7.14 about Jesus relatives referred to as the desposynoi ("those who belong to the master"):

"From the Jewish villages of Nazareth and Kokhaba they travelled around the rest of the land [most likely a reference to Eretz Israel] and interpreted the genealogy they had [from the family tradition] and from the Book of Days [i.e. Chronicles] as far as they could trace it [or: as far as they went on their travels]."[2]

Bauckham's conclusion is that the relatives of Jesus were the theological heart of the Jesus movement and set its theological course. Their work reveals that they developed a Christology based on three legs: (1) Davidic messianism, (2) "Enochic" apocalypticism, and (3) pesher exegesis.

Most interesting to me at least was his discussion of both the early Jewish Christian mission in Galilee lead by Jesus' relatives from Nazareth/Kokhaba during the first generation of the Jesus movement and the Davidic messianism contained in the Lukan genealogy. Luke's family tree reveals that Jesus' Davidic line runs not through Solomon (as Matthew's does), but through the lesser known son of David, Nathan, who is linked then to Zerubbabel. The genealogy is not Luke's creation and reveals a pre-Lukan traditional genealogy that traced the line from David to Nathan to Zerubbabel.

The striking assertion by Bauckham is that Luke’s genealogy derived from Jesus' family. Thus, as Bauckham avers:

"We must now see the family of Jesus as Davidides, conscious, through family tradition, of the hopes of Davidic restoration which had been cherished in their line since Zerubabbel . . . the tradition may not have been important to Jesus himself, but it was there to be activated and developed when Jesus’ relatives became some of his most convinced and dedicated followers". [3]

[1] Bauckham 1990:1, emphasis added.
[2] Bauckham 1990:61, with my addition.

[3] Bauckham 1990:376.


Bauckham, Richard. 1990. Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church. Edinburgh: T & T Clark.

Method and Sources for the Study of Jewish Christianity (1.2. Introduction)

To sum up the earlier discussions of definition, we have defined “Jewish Christianity” as a particular expression of what can be characterized as a more general Jewish belief in Jesus. What’s more, we have defined “Jewish” in both cases by ethnicity or as Boyarin articulated, “a genealogical attachment to physical Israel”, but what is unique about Jewish Christians in contrast to Jewish believers is that the former maintain a Jewish lifestyle after conversion (Boyarin: “an attachment to the fleshly practices of that historical community”). Two qualifications are in order. First, conversion to Messiah Jesus in this sense is not a change of religious traditions as the term is commonly understood today, but rather a change in beliefs, belonging, and behavior within the Jewish scriptural tradition. Second, this entity is not however a monolith as it has been treated in the history of scholarship; but rather Jewish Christianity is a variegated entity like its mother, Second Temple Judaism.[1]

This means most importantly that one should not be overly concerned to define exactly what practices defined a unified Jewish Christianity. Since its mother consisted of diverse and competing sets of exegetical interpretations of Torah and consequent practices, it only stands to reason that no uniform list of practices can be established for Jewish Christianity. This in no way however should disqualify Jewish practice as an essential in any definition of Jewish Christianity or Jewish Christian.

With this definition in mind, we now turn to discuss briefly the sources and method used in researching Jewish Christianity in the early history of the church. Sources for the study of Jewish Christianity in the later first and early second centuries are of four types: early Christian literature, Greco-Roman literature, rabbinic writings and archaeology.

Addressing early Christian sources first, it must be admitted that there is an inherent difficulty in the determination of who is a Jew in an ancient text. Skarsaune quotes Shayne Cohen’s quip: “How do you know a Jew in Antiquity when you see one?”[2] In general, Skarsaune answers people would have known a Jew as a Jew by some “characteristic of their behavior”. To complicate matters more, with the existence of Gentile Judaizers—Gentiles who took on a Jewish lifestyle after converting to belief in Messiah Jesus—recognizing a Jewish Christian is even more difficult than recognizing a Jew in general.

In addition, given the Jewishness of early Christianity with its pervasive use of Jewish genres, symbols, images and ideology (e.g., apocalypticism, the Scriptures, Messianism, etc.) in earliest Christian writings, it is not enough simply to notice something “Jewish” in an ancient text and assume it represents Jewish Christianity. What we are after are quotes and sources authored by Jewish Christians. Thus, Skarsaune suggests three criteria for determining relevant material in early Christian literary sources for research on Jewish Christianity.

(1) Unless there is reason to doubt the particular author’s opinion, one should trust the patristic sources when they reference the Jewish ethnicity of a person.
(2) Given the dearth of Gentile believers who were adroit in Semitic languages (notable exceptions are Origen and Jerome), it is reasonable to assume that when patristic authors make use of Hebrew and Aramaic and/or show familiarity with post-biblical Jewish traditions they are relying on sources that ultimately go back to Jewish believers.
(3) Prohibitions against Jewish practices among early Christians, especially in Constantinian era, are near proof that those practices were in fact occurring.

Among the most widely recognized sources for the study of Jewish Christianity in early Christianity are:

(1) New Testament
(2) Pseudo-Clementine Writings
(3) So-called Jewish Christian Gospels
(4) Fragments of literature contained in the Heresiologists (Greek & Latin church Fathers)
(5) References to Jewish Believers in Fathers (Greek, Latin & Syriac)

Besides early Christian literary sources there is information on Jewish Christians in early Greco-Roman sources, rabbinic works and from archaeological finds. The two latter areas are rife with their own methodological difficulties they will not detain us here. In latter posts we will deal with each of these areas separately. Among Greco-Roman authors the most noteworthy is Celsus, a Middle Platonist philosopher, and will be dealt with when discussing references to Jewish believers in the Fathers.

[1] See Segal (1992:327) has expressed this well: “Although most Jewish groups remained loyal to the law, what loyalty meant differed radically for each sectarian position . . . all these opinions about the law were represented in early Christianity as well, since the earliest Christians took many of their converts from the ranks of Judaism”.
[2] Skarsaune 2006a:17.

Works Cited
Segal, Alan F. 1992. Jewish Christianity. In Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism, ed. Harold W. Attridge and Gohei Hata, 42:326-51. Leiden ; New York: Brill.

More on "Jewish Christianity"

I for one am much enjoying Joel Willitts' read through Jewish Believers in Jesus (JBJ). The topic fascinates me and it is also good because I'm currently reading through Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed, eds., The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (the volume I think is a bit hit and miss).

Part of the problem of defining Jewish Christianity is, for a start, that all of Christianity at least prior to 70 AD is in some form or other "Jewish Christianity". One must wonder then if we should adopt the sub-definition of Judaeo Christianity or Christian Judaism to define that form of Christianity that continued to live a Jewish lifestyle of Torah obedience in combination with faith in Jesus. But even then the problem with praxis (or Torah-observance) based definitions is that Christian Gentiles from the time of Paul to Ignatius of Antioch to John Chrysostom were known to follow elements of the Torah.

Reed thinks that it might be more profitable to define Jewish Christianity as pertaining to certain "modes of belief and worship as a natural extension of Christianity's origins within Judaism, Christians' continued contacts with Jews, and the church's use of the Jewish Scriptures, as well as the long and rich tradition of messianic speculation within Judaism itself" (p. 231). But I submit that such a definition would aptly describe some forms of non-Jewish (non-ethnically Jewish) Gentile Christianity. Back to square one I guess!

Definition of “Jewish Christianity”, “Jewish Christian” and “Jewish Believer in Jesus”, Part Two (1.1. Introduction)

I began in my last post developing the question of the definition of “Jewish Christian”, “Jewish Christianity”, and “Jewish believer in Jesus”. We noted that Skarsaune and the volume Jewish Believers in Jesus (from here it will be abreviated JBJ) use an ethnically based definition in designating the “who” of their study. Skarsaune believes that “(1) the modern terms ‘Jewish believers in Jesus’ and ‘Jewish Christian’ are not without precedent in the ancient sources; and (2) in the ancient sources, ethnicity is the sole criterion for the adjective ‘Jewish’ as it is used in the combined terms ‘Jewish believer’ and ‘Jewish Christian’”.[1]

Furthermore, the editors of the volume wish to differentiate between “Jewish believers in Jesus”, of whom they mean any person of Jewish ethnicity who believes in Jesus as their savior implying nothing of their relationship to a continuing Jewish lifestyle and a “Jewish Christian”. Of the latter they essentially follow the Frenchman S. Mimouni’s definition which he formulated in the late nineties in the essay “La question de la définition du judéo-christianisme”: “ancient Jewish Christianity is a modern term designating those Jews who recognized Jesus as messiah, who recognized or did not recognize the divinity of Christ, but who, all of them, continued to observe the Torah”.[2]

The primary question that arises, however, from such an ethnic-based definition is: how does one determine who is ethnically Jewish; what is the criterion for that determination in a person’s ethnicity in ancient literature? This has been perhaps the most considerable critique of ethnically based definitions in the history of research because there is an obvious inability to determine the race of a person: Who is really Jewish?[3]

Skarsuane anticipating this question seeks to address it by attempting to steer clear of any anachronistic appeal to current halakic answers, namely, “a Jew is a person born by a Jewish mother or a person converted to Judaism according to rabbinic halakic procedure”.[4] Instead, Skarsuane asserts that whatever difficulties surround the terms “Jew” and “Jewish” with respect to determination of how one became Jewish, there is still a “basic fact” that in the Second Temple period and beyond, “Jews in general have had little doubt about who were Jews and who were not”.[5] Thus, for Skarsuane the bottom line regarding Jewish identity is left to the individual Jewish community themselves. He avers: “people who considered themselves Jewish and were considered to be Jewish by the Jewish community were Jewish”.[6]

Skarsaune’s approach seems to me to be commendable for a couple of reasons. First, he has antiquity on his side and can’t be accused of imposing anachronistic categories on ancient phenomena. Second, since what might be called the ontological verification of Jewish ethnicity is inaccessible even for the question of race today for that matter, appealing to the “Jewish community” strikes me as reasonable basis for judging who or who isn’t Jewish. This places ethnicity not simply in a certain percentage of bloodline, but also in the determination of the ethnic group in question. This type of understanding of Jewish identity is perhaps no more evident than with Jewish proselytes who while not Jewish by blood, are considered Jewish by the community.

Given this understanding of ethnicity, however, one might legitimately call into question Skarsaune’s definition and object that such a definition stretches the categories of race and ethnicity too far. I think the issue of what constitutes ethnicity should indeed produce future discussions and debate, although I am quite ready to jump on board with his conception on Jewish identity.

A second way Skarsuane’s definition addresses the continuing scholarly discussion of definition is the diversity of expressions of belief in Jesus among Jews his perspective allows. Unlike earlier approaches, Skarsaune’s “Jewish believers in Jesus” incorporates both those who are traditionally referred as Jewish Christians—those who also continue a Jewish lifestyle, but also includes those who after belief in Jesus assimilate into the Gentile Christian expression of Jesus belief. What’s more, in agreeing with Mimouni’s definition of “Jewish Christianity” (see above), the approach advocated by the editors of JBJ allows for a diversity of opinion even among those who fit under the label “Jewish Christian”. This kind of diversity would be analogous to the diversity within Second Temple Judaism that is widely accepted by scholars today.

One final point about definition relates to the praxis aspect of Skarsaune’s definition of “Jewish Christianity”. The oft suggested critique of praxis-based definitions of Jewish Christianity in the history of research—that there is no clear formulation regarding which laws must be kept to be considered a Jewish Christian—can be again applied here. Still, for me this critique losses much of its force when the issue of praxis is placed in the context of the Second Temple period, for at least the beginning of the Jesus movement.

It seems clear to most scholars of ancient Judaism and early Christianity from the extant evidence of the late Second Temple period that there was a variegated covenantal nomism such that, while there was a basic “common denominator” of belief and practice, there was a wide degree of diversity. Moreover, some groups defined themselves as the “true Israel” in contrast to the rest of the Jewish people based on their “unique” praxis (e.g. Essenes, Pharisees, etc.). It seems reasonable then that differing Jewish expressions of faith in Jesus should be regarded as Jewish if a certain "common denominator" of practice were evinced.

In the next post I will address the issue of sources for Jewish Christianity.

[1] Skarsaune 2006a:7.
[2] Mimouni 1998; translation is Skarsaune’s (2006a:4, 9).
[3] See Carleton Paget’s (2006:38, 42, 44, 49) discussion.
[4] Skarsaune 2006a:11.
[5] Skarsaune 2006a:13.
[6] Skarsaune 2006a:13, emphasis added.

Works Cited:

Carleton Paget, James. 2006. The Definition of the Terms Jewish Christian and Jewish Christianity in the History of Research. In A History of Jewish Believers in Jesus: The First Five Centuries, ed. Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik:22-52. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.

Mimouni, Simon Claude. 1998. La question de la définition du judéo-christianisme. In Le judéo-christianisme ancien: essais historiques, ed. Simon Claude Mimouni:39-72. Paris: Éditions du Cerf.

Skarsaune, Oskar. 2006a. Jewish Believers in Jesus in Antiquity—Problem of Definition, Method, and Sources. In A History of Jewish Believers in Jesus: The First Five Centuries, ed. Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik:3-21. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.