1. Introduction
While much earlier scholarship assumed that impact went in one direction only ‒ from Judaism to Christianity ‒ it is being increasingly acknowledged that influence seems to have gone in both directions and that Judaism and Christianity shaped each other, both through polemic and non-polemic interaction.1 It is also becoming clear that the formation and development of rabbinic Judaism was a lengthy process that occurred not only as a consequence of the destruction of the Second Temple but also in response to Christianity.2
This essay argues that an important factor behind the emergence of rabbinic Judaism was the challenge to Jewish identity and self-understanding posed by Jesus-oriented groups. More specifically, it proposes that the unease with gentile attachment to Israel’s God and involvement with the Torah, and the reconfiguration of the boundaries of Judaism to exclude Jesus-oriented Jews that we see in some early rabbinic texts was, at least in part, a response to a challenge to Jewish self-understanding posed by the Jesus movement’s construction of a competing vision of Israel’s calling, and above all, its construction of an alternative identity of the people of God. The self-alignment of “internal others”3 (Jesus-oriented Jews) with “external others” (Jesus-oriented gentiles), to promote a different understanding of Israel’s covenantal identity, eventually led non-Jesus-oriented Jews to redefine Jewish identity in rabbinic terms.
Sociologists have long noted that when a society’s identity is questioned and as a result becomes unstable, that society needs to reestablish its identity. This is done by creating boundaries ‒ social, religious, cultural, or ideological ‒ to clearly demarcate who belongs to the group and who does not.4 Adiel Schremer has proposed that the need, expressed in early rabbinic texts, to erect ideological boundaries and promote group cohesion was the result of an identity crisis in the wake of the destruction of the second temple in 70 and the failure of the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 135 CE.5 These political and military failures, he argues, were the major cause of an identity crisis, leading to an effort to define the boundaries of the community by labelling certain groups as heretics and excluding them from Jewish society.6 While building on Schremer’s insights, I suggest that the identity crisis was in large part a result of the appropriation of Jewish covenantal identity by Jesus-oriented groups and their construction of an alternative identity of the people of God. Of course, this is not to say that the wars against the Romans and the destruction of the temple did not also influence the formation of rabbinic Judaism.
Many adherents to the early Jewish Jesus movement seem to have believed that, with the end of days, God had purified the gentiles so that they could join the people of God without becoming Jews, provided they were committed to observing the commandments that the Torah prescribes for non-Israelites, thus safeguarding the purity of the community (Acts 15:19–20, 29 and Lev 17–18).7 Concern with the salvation of gentiles was not an invention by the Jesus movement and first-century Jews generally seem to have been quite open to gentiles.8 However, with their claim that the people of God had been reconfigured to include Jesus-believing gentiles as gentiles, Jesus-oriented groups had planted a seed that would destabilize the traditional identification of the Jewish people with biblical Israel and involved non-Jews in a debate that would otherwise have been an internal Jewish affair. There seems to have been a distinction between “Israel” (only Jews) and the people of God (Jews and Jesus-believing gentiles) that was upheld in the early Jesus movement (1 Cor 7:17–24; Gal 3:28; Rom 15:10; Acts 15:19–21, 28–29),9 but by the mid-second century the idea that gentile followers of Jesus had acquired the same status as Jews, and together with Israel now constituted the people of God, had in some circles evolved into the claim that the Jews had been rejected by God. According to this idea, they had been replaced by Jesus-believers, who now constituted the true Israel (verus Israel), to whom God’s blessings and promises had been transferred.10
This was no mere theological controversy but a claim that struck at the very core of Jewish self-understanding. As Paula Fredriksen and Matthew Thiessen point out, in antiquity peoplehood (or, what we might designate “ethnicity”) was perceived in terms of kinship. Gods and their peoples formed families. The relationship was upheld through specific protocols of worship, known as “ancestral customs.” What we call “religions” were ethnically embedded. Israel’s customs and relationship to their God were defining aspects of their ethnic identity.11 Thus, the Jesus movement’s claims regarding the identity of the people of God, and the later reconfiguration of Israel by authors such as Justin, would have been seen as an appropriation of a major aspect of Jewish identity and the ancestral customs which came with it. I suggest that some non-Jesus-oriented Jews responded to the challenges posed by the development within Jesus-oriented groups by re-drawing the boundaries of Judaism so as to exclude the latter (both Jews and gentiles), and by introducing new practices designed to distinguish rabbinic Jews from Jesus-oriented Jews and the gentiles associated with them.12 The new customs focused in particular on commensality and foodstuff, matters that are especially significant for the formation of group identity.13
In what follows, I focus on a few passages from early rabbinic texts, mainly but not exclusively from the Sifre, which exhibit a preoccupation with the boundaries of Israel and express unease with gentile attachment to the God of Israel and involvement with the Torah. I suggest that these texts indicate a sense of challenge to Israel’s identity generated by the appropriation of major aspects of Jewish self-understanding on the part of Jesus-oriented groups and their partly Torah-observant gentile adherents. Furthermore, I propose viewing the emphasis these texts put on Israel’s distinction from gentiles, and their effort to redraw the boundaries of Judaism to exclude Jesus-oriented Jews, as responses to that challenge. In closing, I suggest that the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions (1.27–71) may be seen as representing an insider voice of Jesus-oriented Jews in late second and early third century Roman Palestine.
It has been noted before that some passages from the Sifre and Mekhilta (late third century rabbinic commentaries on Deuteronomy and Exodus respectively) polemicize against “Christians.”14 However, I wish to highlight here that it is not a question of Jews arguing against “Christians” as separate, independent entities. Rather, it is a matter of one group of Jews (rabbinic-to-be) attempting to distinguish themselves from another group (Jesus-oriented Jews and gentiles), who laid equal claims to Jewish self-understanding and covenantal identity. As the term “Christians” obscures the fact that the separation process between Jesus-oriented groups (Jews and gentiles) and non-Jesus-oriented Jews was in part a development that took place within Judaism, I will instead refer to the Jesus-followers of the early centuries CE as “Jesus-oriented groups.”
2. Jesus-Oriented Groups and Gentile Attraction to Israel’s God
The Sifre’s expansions of the biblical account of God’s election of Israel and the giving of the Torah are curiously preoccupied with “the nations of the world” (non-Jews), said to have been approached by God and offered the Torah before God turned to Israel. These non-Jewish nations are depicted in quite negative terms,15 and Israel’s distinction from them is stressed. Israel alone among the nations are said to have accepted the Torah at Sinai, where God’s voice, visible as tongues of fire, encircled the people, separating them from the nations.16 Because the nations rejected the Torah when God offered it to them,17 they have no right to it and no share in the special relationship with God enjoyed by Israel through the Torah, according to the Sifre. The nations are portrayed as utterly hopeless and incapable of keeping even the few commandments given to all humankind through Noah.18 Still, they envy Israel their position as the recipients of the Torah and are attracted to Israel’s God and way of life, an attraction seen by some to jeopardize Israel’s unique relationship with their God:
Similarly, the nations of the world would ask Israel, “How is your beloved better than another” (Songs 5:9), that you are killed for his sake, as it is said, “Therefore do maidens love you [unto death]” (Songs 1:3)?19 And it also says, “It is for your sake that we are slain all day long” (Ps 44:23). You are all beautiful, you are all heroic. Come and mingle with us.” And Israel replied, “Let us tell you a little of his praise and you will recognize him, My beloved is clear-skinned and ruddy […] (Songs 5:10–16).” When the nations of the world heard of his beauty and the praise of the Holy One, blessed be He, they said to Israel: “Let us come with you, as it is said, Whither has your beloved gone, o fairest of women? Whither has your beloved turned? Let us seek him with you?” (Songs 6:1). What does Israel reply? “You have no portion in him, I am my beloved’s and my beloved “is mine” (Songs 6:3).20
As Steven Fraade notes, this passage seems to be saying that gentile interest in Israel’s God (“Let us come with you”) is no less threatening to Israel’s identity than the risk of assimilation (“Come and mingle with us”).21 What might have prompted this sense of threat posed by the nations joining Israel in the second or early third century? According to Schremer, the identity crisis reflected here was a result of the military and political defeat at the hands of the Romans in 70 and 135, and he sees in the question placed in the mouth of the nations (“How is your beloved better than another that you are killed for his sake?”), a reflection of religious doubts among the rabbis themselves.22 I wonder, though, whether the fear of identity loss reflected here was not as much, or even more, provoked by Jesus-oriented groups and the extent to which gentiles through them were brought closer to Jews and Judaism.
Pagans had been present in Jewish synagogues since before the common era, adopting as much or as little of Jewish worship and practice as they wished.23 However, the situation changed with the Jesus movement’s demand that gentile adherents abstain from all things connected to the cult of the gods, from ingesting blood and strangled animals, and from sexual relations prohibited by the Jewish scriptures (Acts 15:19–21, 28–29, 21:25; cf. 1 Cor 5:1–2; 6:9–10; Gal 5:19–21). As they were no longer free to engage in pagan cults, and thus could not participate fully in the Greco-Roman life permeated with libations and sacrifices to the gods, these non-Jewish Jesus-adherents would have been more invested in the Jesus movement and their identity increasingly defined by it. The prohibition to worship other gods also meant that exclusive allegiance to the God of Israel would no longer have been a distinguishing mark for Jews only. While some Jews may have welcomed this change among gentile sympathizers, others might have feared repercussions from the Roman authorities and a blurring of Jewish and gentile identities.24 The demands that the Jesus movement made on gentiles would have brought them closer to a Jewish way of life and would have made their behavior appear “jewish,” as Mark Nanos puts it,25 a development that would have affected Jews also. Thus, I do not think that we should dismiss out of hand the possibility that the words put in the mouth of the nations in the story above reflect a historical reality in which some gentiles were perceived as attaching themselves so closely to Israel’s God as to challenge the special relationship that Israel enjoyed with their God.
3. A Response to the Challenge
In response, some non-Jesus-oriented Jews felt a need to insist that the Torah, the sign of the covenant between Israel and their God, was the exclusive possession of Israel. The Sifre’s comment on Deut 33:4 (“Moses gave us the Torah as the heritage of the congregation of Jacob”) reads as follows:
Moses commanded us the Torah as the heritage [
מורשה ] of the congregation of Jacob. [Deut 33:4] This command is only for us, it is only for our sake […]Another interpretation of the heritage [
מורשה ] of the congregation of Jacob: Read not “heritage” [מורשה ] but “betrothed” [מאורשה ].26 This teaches that the Torah is betrothed to Israel and is like a married woman with respect to the nations of the world, as it says, “Can a man rake embers into his bosom without burning his clothes? Can a man walk on live coal without scorching his feet? It is the same with one who sleeps with his fellow’s wife; none who touches her will go unpunished.” (Prov 6:27–29)27
Fraade proposes that the nations, whose involvement with the Torah is likened to adultery, may have been Christians who engaged in the study of the Bible “without submitting to its (rabbinically understood) covenantal stipulations,” or pagans who attended the synagogue to hear the Torah taught but without committing themselves to its commandments.28 He recognizes that the negative preoccupation with the “nations of the world” likely reflects the historical circumstances of third-century Palestine, but is hesitant to identify the nations of the world too firmly with “Christians,” preferring to see in the Sifre Israel’s need to confront both Rome (pagans) and the church (Christians).29 While it may be wise not reduce the commentary to a polemical response to one specific group only, it would seem that the “nations” in this case refers primarily to non-Jewish adherents of Jesus-oriented groups, who not only studied the Torah but had also adopted some of its commandments.30 Torah observant Jesus-oriented gentiles, who like Jews were committed to the exclusive worship of the God of Israel and claimed to be equal partners in the covenant (or even to constitute the “true Israel”), would have posed much more of a threat to Jewish self-understanding and identity than pagans who remained committed to their own cults even if they had chosen to also worship the God of Israel. Moreover, Jesus-oriented groups had adopted the Jewish scriptures as their own and claimed to have the correct interpretation of them, which would have made it more urgent to protect the Torah from Jesus followers than from pagans who made no such claims. From the perspective of non-Jesus-oriented Jews, Jesus-oriented gentiles were not part of the covenant of which the Torah was the sign. Observance of commandments outside the legally defined commitment that the covenant constituted may have been seen as infringing on Israel’s privileges and as blurring the boundary between Jews and gentiles. Incidentally, some Jesus-oriented Jews, such as the Pharisees in Acts 15:1, 5 and perhaps Matthew, would probably have agreed.
A response to Sabbath observance by non-Jews – in my view, likely Jesus-adherents – is found in a passage from the Mekhilta. Commenting on Exod 31:16–17 (“The Israelite people shall keep the sabbath, observing the sabbath throughout the ages as a covenant for all time: it shall be a sign for all time between Me and the people of Israel”), the Mekhilta adds, “but not between me and the nations of the world.”31 Given what we know about Torah observance by Jesus followers in the second and third centuries, I am inclined to see in “the nations of the world” a reference to Jesus-oriented gentiles, but without drawing too firm a line between them and non-Jews in general.32
It is essential to note, however, that rabbinic Judaism was not monolithic and that tannaitic literature includes a strand of traditions according to which God had intended the Torah for all humanity and in which Torah observance by gentiles is praised.33 Moreover, the repeated prohibitions by Christian leaders and church councils against attending synagogue services, celebrating Jewish holidays, eating and associating with Jews,34 seem to suggest that many Jewish assemblies continued to welcome Jesus-adherents and, we may assume, felt no threat to their identity. It may well be the case that the unease with gentile involvement with the Torah and the need to redraw the boundaries of Judaism so as to exclude Jesus-following Jews and gentiles that we find in a text to be discussed below was felt only among some non-Jesus-oriented Jews. The idea that the Torah was exclusively for Jews was obviously not universally accepted, even within the rabbinic movement. Interestingly, however, this is the view we find in later rabbinic literature and the position that would eventually prevail.35 It appears likely that it was precisely the claims of Jesus-oriented groups and the semi-Jewish behavior among their gentile adherents that led to this development.
The Sifre’s next expansion establishes the Torah as Israel’s birthright and the heritage of all Israelites by virtue of their being Jacob’s descendants:
Another interpretation [of “the heritage of the congregation of Jacob”]. Do not read “betrothed” [
מאורשה ] but “heritage” [מורשה ]. This teaches that the Torah is the inheritance [מורשה ] of Israel. A parable: To what may this be compared? To the son of kings who when young was taken captive to a country across the sea. Should he desire to return even after a hundred years, he need not be embarrassed to do so because he can say, “I am returning to my inheritance” [ירושתי ]. Similarly, a rabbi [תלמיד חכם ] who separated himself from the words of Torah and went after other things [דברים אחרים ] can return without shame even after a hundred years, because he can say, “I am returning to my heritage” [ירושתי ]. Therefore it is said, “the heritage [מורשה ] of the congregation of Jacob”.36
As Fraade notes, the meaning “betrothed” stresses that the Torah is only for Israel, whereas the meaning “heritage” underscores that it belongs to all Israelites. The “betrothed” and the “heritage” aspects emphasize different, but complementary, qualities of Israel’s relationship to the Torah. While the “betrothed” aspect defines Israel’s relation to the Torah in legally obligatory terms that preclude a similar relationship to the Torah on the part of “the nations,” the “heritage” aspect stresses that all Israelites, even if they have abandoned the Torah and involved themselves with the ancestral customs of other peoples, can always return to it, since it is theirs by inheritance.37 In addition, the meaning “betrothed” stresses Israel’s active acceptance of and involvement with the Torah, while the sense “heritage” underscores the unconditional share in the Torah that all Israelites have by virtue of being descendants of Jacob. Although speculative, one might venture that the latter aspect was also meant to counter the claim made by some Jesus-oriented groups that God’s people had been reconfigured and only included those Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah. Against such a view, our passage insists that the Torah, the sign of God’s covenant with his people, belongs to all of Jacob’s descendants regardless of their beliefs and, as their birthright, it is always theirs to return to.
It is important to point out that it was not the inclusion of gentiles by Jesus-oriented groups per se that bothered the author/redactor of these passages in the Sifre, but rather that they were included in the covenant as gentiles, that is, without first being transformed into Jews. The rabbinic movement also welcomed non-Jews, but it included them through conversion, a procedure whereby the non-Jew not only pledged exclusive allegiance to the God of Israel but also joined the Jewish ethnos. Unconvinced that the Jesus event signified a divine transformation of the gentiles, non-Jesus-oriented Jews insisted that, in order to be included in the covenant with Israel’s God, gentiles needed to adopt all of Israel’s ancestral customs and become Jews (cf. the Jesus-believing Pharisees in Acts 15:5).
4. Separating from Jesus-Oriented Groups
That Jesus-oriented groups were indeed perceived as a threat is evident from the hostility towards them in Tosefta Ḥullin, a passage where the context allows us to identify those referred to as minim as Jesus-oriented Jews:38
Meat found in the hand of a gentile is permitted for gain, but [if it is found] in the hand of a min, it is prohibited for gain. That which comes out of the house of a min39 is the meat of sacrifices to the dead, for they have said: The slaughtering by a min is idolatry, their bread is the bread of a Samaritan,40 their wine is the wine of libation, their fruits are untithed, and their books are the books of diviners, and their children are mamzerim. One should not sell to them, nor buy from them. One should not take from them, nor give to them. One should not teach their sons a craft. One should not be healed by them, either financially or medically.41
Noting the exaggerated claims about minim, and the call to treat them with a stringency not applied even to gentiles, scholars commonly see this passage as a polemical attempt to establish boundaries by excluding Jesus-oriented Jews from Jewish society. The reason for this attempt is presumed to be fear that their version of Judaism might appeal to other Jews with whom they would have been in daily contact.42 Indeed, the two stories about encounters between rabbis and Jesus-oriented Jews which follow immediately after this passage testify to close proximity and contact between Jesus-oriented Jews and other Jews in the Galilee (tḤullin 2:24). As Adiel Schremer points out, the call for a boycott of minim here probably does not reflect an established view of Jesus-followers as heretics but is rather an attempt to introduce the idea. Stigmatizing them as minim would marginalize them, and in the end make outsiders of a group claiming to be insiders.43 Still, it does not quite explain why this particular rival vision of Judaism would be so dangerous as to warrant the total exclusion of its adherents.
Given the diversity of Judaism also post-70, recent scholarship has rightly rejected the traditional idea that belief in Jesus as the Messiah would have been incompatible with a Jewish worldview or identity in antiquity. There is no reason, as Daniel Boyarin notes, “why believing that Jesus was the Messiah would be considered as beyond the pale of rabbinic Judaism, any more than Rabbi Akiva’s belief in Bar Kokhba as Messiah rendered him a heretic.”44 In fact, Jewish sources from the first century BCE/CE, such as the Similitudes of Enoch, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch include traditions about the Messiah and the messianic age that are not much different from those of some New Testament texts.45 One finds in early rabbinic literature, writes Annette Yoshiko Reed, “nothing akin to the explicit emphasis on messianic belief as a boundary between religions.”46 Indeed, a typical trait of rabbinic literature is the co-existence of different opinions and, although some texts testify to occasional excommunications, rabbinic Judaism generally prefers to be inclusive.
Neither are there any specific complaints about the practices of the Jesus- oriented Jews of the Tosefta passage. On the contrary, the wide-ranging accusation of idolatry may actually indicate the absence of any concrete objections to their practice with regard to the method of slaughter and preparation of bread and wine ‒ a resort to rhetoric to compensate for the lack of factual arguments. What then, was the problem with Jesus-oriented Jews?
Again, I would argue that it was the threat they posed to Jewish identity and group cohesion as a result of their decision to incorporate gentile outsiders without first making them Jews, gentiles who over time would consolidate their position in the movement at the expense of Jews. From a non-Jesus-oriented Jewish perspective, the development whereby Jesus-oriented Jews and gentiles had appropriated for themselves essential aspects of Jewish covenantal identity called for a redefinition of Israel that would exclude them. Presumably, Jesus-oriented Jews were indistinguishable from other Jews,47 and as social identity theorists have observed, it is those one resembles the most whom it is most urgent to reject by clarifying where differences exist and establishing points of difference.48
5. Jesus-Oriented Jews in Roman Palestine
Do we have any evidence for the presence of Jesus-oriented Jews in third- and fourth- century Roman Palestine, apart from a few rabbinic sources and mentions by some of the church fathers?49 Some scholars have suggested that Rec. 1.27–71, preserved in the fourth-century Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions but considered an independent source from the late second or early third century, provides evidence of a Jesus-oriented Jewish community.50 Composed in Greek, possibly in Judaea, the work appears to be an attempt, by a Jewish Jesus-follower who saw in the coming of Jesus the goal and fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel, to convince fellow Jews with arguments from the Jewish scriptures that Jesus is the Messiah.51 Although we do not know if the author was ethnically Jewish, the concern with the land identified as Judaea, the praise of Hebrew as the original tongue of humankind (1.30.5), the mention of Abraham as the ancestor of “our race, the Hebrews, who are also called the Jews” (1.32.1), suggests a Jewish self-identity on the part of both author and audience.52 While not necessarily evidence for a separate community of Jewish Jesus-adherents, it is tempting to see Rec. 1.27–71 as an insider voice of Jesus-followers with a Jewish identity.
Recognitions 1.27–71 consists of a brief review of the main events in Israel’s history, from creation to the advent of Jesus (1.27–39), followed by a more detailed account of the activities of the apostles after the death and resurrection of Jesus (1.39–71), which appears to be a revision of selected traditions form the Book of Acts.53 The author is aware of the mission to the gentiles, said to have come about only because not all Jews embraced Jesus (1.42.1),54 but is more interested in persuading Jews that Jesus is the Messiah (1.50.1–4), taking care to portray the Jesus-followers as a Jewish group alongside priests, Sadducees, and Pharisees. Promoting a vision of Judaism with Jesus as its center, the author describes Jesus as the prophet predicted by Moses and stresses the continuity between the two. Jesus has come to complete the mission begun by Moses (1.36.2; 1.37.2), and to replace the sacrifices which Moses had reluctantly allowed with baptism “for the forgiveness of sins” (1.39.1–2). However, as both a prophet and the Messiah, Jesus is greater than Moses:
The fact is that we assert not that he is equal to Moses but rather that he is greater than Moses. For what Moses was, a prophet, Jesus is too; but what Jesus is, the Christ, Moses is not. Thus, what Moses is, Jesus is too; but what Jesus is, Moses is not. (Syr. 1.59.2–3)55
At the same time, he is anxious to downplay any differences between Jews who believe that Jesus is the Messiah and Jews who do not, emphasizing that the only thing that distinguishes the Jesus-followers from other Jews, referred to as “those among our people who do not believe,” is the former’s view that Jesus is the Messiah:
They [the priests] were frequently sending and asking us to speak with them about Jesus, whether he is the prophet who was foretold by Moses, that is, the eternal Christ. For concerning this alone is there a difference between us who believe in Jesus and those among our people who do not believe. (Syr. 1.43.1–2; cf. 1.50.5)56
Interestingly, Rec. 1.27–71 presents the Jesus group in much the same way that tḤullin 2:20–24 describes followers of Jesus, namely as Jews who are found in close proximity to rabbinic Jews, and whose teachings appeal to Jews outside their own group. Like the Tosefta passage, the author of Rec. 1.27–71 has some harsh things to say about Jews who disagree with him – those who do not embrace Jesus as the Messiah (1.39.3–1.40.2) – but he still seems to entertain hope that they will be persuaded and, in the end, saved.57 Recognitions 1.27–71 includes a number of traditions that also appear in rabbinic texts, and based on these shared traditions, scholars have pondered the relationship between the author of Rec. 1.27–71 and rabbinic Jews. Albert Baumgarten has suggested that the Jesus-oriented groups described in the Pseudo-Clementines were in close proximity and maintained intellectual contact with rabbinic Jews,58 and more recently, Jonathan Bourgel has proposed that Rec. 1.27–71 was composed by Jewish believers in Jesus, who were also committed to rabbinic tradition.59
Thus, Rec. 1.27–71 presents an alternative, Jesus-centered vision of Judaism but does not provide explicit evidence of an alliance between Jesus-oriented Jews and gentiles who together promote a different understanding of the make-up of the people of God. While it is possible that the focus on Jews in Rec. 1.27–71 indicates that, even as late as the early third century, Jesus’s messiahship remained for some an internal Jewish affair, the many traditions that the work shares with Justin seems to suggest close contact with and influence from Jesus-oriented gentiles.60 Thus, another way of interpreting the concern to present the dispute about Jesus’s messiahship as an internal Jewish debate, and the emphasis on the significance of Jesus for Jews, is to see it as an attempt to reclaim Jesus for Judaism at a time when the influence of gentile Jesus-adherents was growing and the Jewishness of the Jesus movement was being contested. Mark Kinzer notes that the idea of the Jesus movement as an internal Jewish phenomenon seems to have been challenged in both Jewish and non-Jewish spheres already at the time of the composition of Acts.61 If so, some Jesus-oriented Jews may have wanted to reclaim Jesus and the Jesus movement as Jewish phenomena with utmost significance for Jews. If understood in this way, Rec. 1.27–71 may reflect a Jewish reaction to increasing gentile hegemony within Jesus-oriented groups.
Regardless of how we interpret the evidence of Rec. 1.27–71, the alliance between Jews and gentiles among many Jesus-followers and their claim to have appropriated the covenantal identity of Israel, would have been known to non-Jesus-oriented Jews and may explain why some of them, at least, regarded Jesus-oriented Jews with profound suspicion. Had it not been for the challenge to Jewish identity and group cohesion, perceived in the close relationship of Jesus-oriented Jews to non-Jews, Jesus-centeredness may well have remained an orientation within Judaism. As Schremer suggests, we probably see in tḤullin the beginning of a deliberate effort to make Jesus-orientation incompatible with Jewishness and Judaism, and in Rec. 1.27–71, I would add, we possibly see a resistance to it. Differences over theology became part of Jewish and Christian self-identities only at a later stage, when they served to further consolidate and legitimate a split that had occurred for other reasons.
In sum, I have suggested that alongside the need to adapt Jewish tradition to a life without a temple, an important factor behind the emergence of the rabbinic movement was a need to separate from Jesus-oriented groups because of the challenge they were perceived to pose to Jewish identity as a consequence of their appropriation of essential aspects of Jewish self-understanding. The concern that we find in some third-century rabbinic texts, to define Israel as all those, but only those, who accepted the Torah at Sinai, and the insistence that the Torah and the Sabbath are the exclusive possession of Israel, appears to reflect a need to re-establish Israel’s identity in the wake of the blurring of the boundary between Jews and gentiles by Jesus-oriented interpretations of Judaism, which incorporated gentiles in the covenantal relationship between Israel and their God. Paradoxically, the Jewish Jesus movement’s mission to the gentiles made some non-Jesus-oriented Jews turn away from the concern with gentiles and their salvation and focus instead on Israel, defined in rabbinic terms.
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Hayes, C., The “Other” in Rabbinic Literature, in: C. E. Fonrobert/M. S. Jaffee (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud, Cambridge, 2007, 243–269.
Hayward, C. T. R., Interpretations of the Name Israel in Ancient Judaism and Some Early Christian Writings, Oxford 2005.
Hezser, C., The Social Structure of the Rabbinic Movement, Tübingen 1997.
Hirshman, M., A Rivalry of Genius: Jewish and Christian Biblical Interpretation in Late Antiquity, Albany, NY 1996.
Hirshman, M., Rabbinic Universalism in the Second and Third Centuries, in: HTR 93 (2000) 101–115.
Jones, F. S., An Ancient Jewish Christian Source on the History of Christianity. Pseudo- Clementine Recognitions 1.27–71, Atlanta, GA 1995.
Jones, F. S., Pseudoclementina Elchasaiticaque inter Judaeochristiana. Collected Studies, Leuven 2012.
Jones, F. S., The Syriac Pseudo-Clementines. An Early Version of the First Christian Novel, Turnhout 2014.
Kinzer, M., Jerusalem Crucified, Jerusalem Risen. The Resurrected Messiah, the Jewish People, and the Land of Promise, Eugene 2018.
Kraemer, D. C., Jewish Eating and Identity Through the Ages, London 2009 [2007].
Lagarde, P. de, Clementis Romani Recognitiones Syriace, Leipzig 1861.
Lieu, J. M., The Race of the God-Fearers, in: JThS 46 (1995) 483–501.
Nanos, M. D., Paul’s Non-Jews Do Not Become “Jews,” But Do They Become “Jewish”? In: JJMJS 1 (2014) 26–53.
Oliver, I. W., Torah Praxis after 70 CE. Reading Matthew and Luke-Acts as Jewish Texts, Tübingen 2013.
Porton, G. G., Goyim. Gentiles and Israelites in Mishnah-Tosefta, Atlanta, GA 1988.
Reed, A. Y. “Jewish Christianity” after the “Parting of the Ways”. Approaches to Historiography and Self-Definition in the Pseudo-Clementines, in A. H. Becker/ A. Y. Reed (eds.), The Ways That Never Parted. Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Minneapolis, MN 2007, 189–231.
Reed A. Y., Messianism between Judaism and Christianity, in: M. L. Morgan/ S. Weitzman (eds.), Rethinking the Messianic Idea in Judaism, Bloomington 2014, 23–62.
Rehm, B., Pseudoklementinen, Vol. 2, Rekognitionen in Rufinus Übersetzung (GCS 51), Berlin 1965.
Richardson, P., Israel in the Apostolic Church, Cambridge 1969.
Rosenblum, J. D., Food and Identity in Early Rabbinic Judaism, Cambridge 2010.
Schremer, A., Brothers Estranged. Heresy, Christianity, and Jewish Identity in Late Antiquity, Oxford 2010.
Schäfer, P., Jesus in the Talmud, Princeton, NJ 2007.
Schäfer, P., The Jewish Jesus. How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other, Princeton, NJ 2012.
Simon, M., Verus Israel. A Study of the Relations between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire AD 135–425, London 1996.
Stanton, G., Jewish Christian Elements in the Pseudo-Clementine Writings in: O. Skarsaune/R. Hvalvik (eds.), Jewish Believers in Jesus. The Early Centuries, Peabody, MA 2007, 305–324.
Stern, D., Jesus’ Parables from the Perspectives of Rabbinic Literature: The Examnple of the Wicked Husbandmen, in: C. Thoma/M. Wyschogrod (eds.), Parable and Story in Judaism and Christianity, New York, NY 1989, 42–80.
Thiessen, M., Contesting Conversion. Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity, Oxford 2011.
Trebilco, P. R., Jewish Communities in Asia Minor, Cambridge 1991.
Van Voorst, R. E., The Ascents of James. History and Theology of a Jewish-Christian Community, Atlanta, GA 1988.
Wilken, R. L., John Chrysostom and the Jews. Rhetoric and Reality in the Late 4th Century, Berkeley 1983.
Yuval, I. J., Two Nations in Your Womb. Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Berkeley 2006.
Yuval, I. J., All Israel Have a Portion in the World to Come, in: F. E. Udoh/S. Heschel/M. Chancey/G. Tatum (eds.), Redefining First-Century Jewish and Christian Identities, Notre Dame 2008, 114–138.
See Schäfer, Jesus; Boyarin, Border Lines.
For the slow emergence of the rabbinic movement, see Hezser, Structure. For examples of Christian influence on rabbinic Judaism, see Yuval, Nations.
Hayes, Other, defines “internal others” as “members of [a] group that would contest the group’s identity or construct it in a different way”. (p. 243)
See, e.g., Erikson, Puritans.
Schremer, Brothers.
Schremer, Brothers, 16–17, 25–68.
See Thiessen, Conversion, 123–141; Oliver, Torah, 365–398.
Interest in the salvation of non-Jews is widespread in Second Temple Jewish literature. In many of the relevant texts, equal status between Jews and gentiles is envisioned by downplaying the specific requirements and traits connected to God’s covenant with Israel and by advocating a number of ethical commandments that apply equally to all humankind; see Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles.
See also Fredriksen/Thiessen, Paul, 371–388, esp. 383–384; Thiessen, Conversion, 123–124; 140–141; Oliver, Torah, 365–398.
An early proponent of this view was Justin: “We have been led to God through this crucified Christ and we are the true spiritual Israel, and the descendants of Judah, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham, who, though uncircumcised, was approved and blessed by God because of his faith and was called the father of many nations” (Dial. 11.5; cf. Dial. 123.9; 135.3); See Richardson, Israel, and Harvey, Israel, 253–254; Simon, Israel, 170–173. Other ancient authors, such as Barnabas and Tertullian, argued that God’s covenant with the Jews was annulled and his promises transferred to Christians; see Harvey, Israel, 251–252; Hayward, Interpretations, 344–345; Simon, Israel, 78–79. Rabbinic awareness of the claim of some Jesus-oriented groups to constitute “Israel” is evidenced in later rabbinic texts like Songs Rab. 7:3; Tanh. Ki Tissa 34. See also Tanh. Vayyera 6 (ed. Buber); Pesiq. Rab. 5; Exod. Rab. 47:1.
Fredriksen/Thiessen, Paul, 372–374.
Berger/Luckmann, Construction, observe that a threat posed by an alternative symbolic universe that may appear attractive to members of one’s own group is likely to be countered by modifications of the tradition.
Kraemer, Eating, and Rosenblum, Food, argue that the new customs introduced by the early rabbinic movement were designed to differentiate rabbinic Jews from other Jews, but they do not consider the possibility that Jesus-oriented Jews may have been among these other Jews.
See Fraade, Tradition, 25–68 and references on 265 n. 35; Stern, Parables, 42–80, esp. 61. For responses to Christians in the Mekhilta, see Hirshman, Rivalry.
The Sifre contains 69 negative references to the “nations” and only six neutral. The Mekhilta has 40 negative references. By comparison, the other midrashic collections from the tannaitic period contain only eight negative references to the “nations” (Sifre Numbers) and 19 (Sifra) respectively; see Fraade, Tradition, 228 n. 229.
Sifre §343–345 on Deut 33:1–4. Cf. §313 (on Deut 32:10) according to which Israel are bound to God through their constant interpretation of his word; see Fraade, Tradition, 25–68.
The tradition that God gave the Torah to Israel only after having offered it to the nations of the world is widespread. For more and later parallels, see Fraade, Tradition, 197 n. 38.
Sifre §343; Cf. Mek. R. Ishmael Bahodesh 5 (Lauterbach vol. 2, 234–236), Fraade, Tradition, 32–36.
Sifre §343 on Deut 33:2 (ed. Finkelstein, 399). Unless otherwise noted translations of rabbinic sources are my own. Translations of biblical verses are taken from the Jewish Publication Society Hebrew-English Tanakh.
Fraade, Tradition, 43.
Schremer, Brothers, 40–42.
Fredriksen/Irshai, Anti-Judaism, 977–1034, esp. 987–988. These pagan sympathizers are often designated “God-fearers”. Ancient sources mention their adoption of dietary restrictions and the observance of Sabbath and other festivals; Lieu, Race, 175–197. For epigraphical evidence, see Trebilco, Communities, 152–164.
As pointed out by Fredriksen and Irshai, Anti-Judaism, 987–988, for pagans, multiple religious allegiances were standard and unproblematic as long as they did not involve the abandonment of Greco-Roman gods and cults. Such an arrangement was likely convenient for Jews who considered exclusive allegiance to the God of Israel as the defining privilege of Israel.
Nanos, Non-Jews, 26–53. Speaking of “Jewish non-Jews” rather than “Christian gentiles,” he wishes to highlight that the early Jesus movement brought non-Jews “into a Jewish way of life, into Judaism, into Jewish synagogues,” even as they remained non-Jews. See also Fredriksen, Judaizing.
Some manuscripts have
Sifre §345 (ed. Finkelstein, 402).
Fraade, Tradition, 58.
Fraade, Tradition, 67–68. Scholars debate whether “the nations of the world” refer specifically to “Christians,” in particular “gentile Christians” (Boyarin, Lines, 137), or to pagans more generally (Schremer, Brothers, 82–84). From a rabbinic perspective, however, the defining aspect of both would have been that they were not Jews. It is not surprising, then, that the term as used in rabbinic literature in some instances seems to refer to Jesus-oriented gentiles and in others to pagans.
From the constant outbursts by Jesus-oriented leaders of the second–fourth centuries against observance of the Mosaic law, we know that many non-Jewish Jesus-adherents indeed kept a level of Torah observance, and that their authorities found this deeply disturbing (Ignatius [Magn. 8.1; 10.3] , Irenaeus [Epid. 89], and Justin [Dial. 47]). Origen urges the members of his congregation not to discuss in church what they had learned from the Jews in the synagogue the day before and not to eat meals in both places (Hom. Lev. 5.8; Sel. Exod. 12.46), and Chrysostom complains of Christians who keep the Sabbath, go to synagogue, celebrate Passover and Sukkot; see Fredriksen, Duck, 30, n. 17. The fourth-century councils of Elvira and Laodicea likewise suggest that some Jesus-adherents went well beyond the commandments of the Apostolic Decree in their adoption of Jewish practices, fasting with Jews, keeping the Sabbath (and working on Sunday), celebrating Jewish festivals, eating unleavened bread at Easter; Wilken, John, 71–72 and references there.
Mek. R. Ishmael Shabb. 1.
Cf. Hirshman, Rivalry, 57, who, in light of the polemical language of the passage as a whole, sees it as a reaction to “Christian” claims. One might object that Jubilees displays a similar concern with identity markers distinguishing Israel from non-Jews and that accordingly such a concern does not require the presence of Jesus-oriented gentiles. This is true, but while the Mekhilta’s reference to “the nations” may also include pagans, non-Jewish Sabbath observers posing a serious challenge to Jewish identity in the second and third centuries would likely have been Jesus-adherents.
These traditions are considered to belong to the school associated with R. Ishmael and are found in the Mekhilta, Sifre to Numbers, and Mekhilta de Arayot, a source preserved in Sifra but seen as deriving from the R. Ishmael school; see Hirshman, Universalism, 101–115.
See FN 30 above.
Hirshman, Universalism, 115. See bAvod. Zar. 2a–3b and bSanh. 59b where the following reworking of the tradition from Sifre is found: “R. Yohanan said: A gentile [oved kokahvim] who engages in Torah is liable to the death penalty, as it is said, Moses commanded us the Torah, as the heritage of the congregation of Jacob (Deut 33:4), a ‘heritage’ for us and not for them. According to the one who says ‘heritage,’ the prohibition against involvement in the Torah is included in the prohibition of robbery, as a gentile who engages in Torah robs the Jewish people of it. According to the one who says ‘betrothed,’ the punishment is like that of one who engages in intercourse with a betrothed young woman, which is execution by stoning.”
Sifre §345 (ed. Finkelstein, 402).
Fraade, Tradition, 56–60.
Min, the term by which the rabbis refer to Jews who in their opinion held heretical views, is quite broad and can include all sorts of individuals and groups of which the rabbis did not approve. Yet the two stories about encounters between rabbis and Jesus followers that immediately follow allow us in this case to identify the minim as Jesus followers. For a recent discussion of minim in tannaitic literature, see Grossberg, Heresy, 50–88. For the relation between minim and “Christians,” see Schremer, Brothers, 87–99; Burns, Schism, 159–208. For the later development and minim in the Talmud; see Bar-Asher Siegal, Dialogues, 1–25.
Reading mi-beit ha-min instead of mi-beit ’avodah zarah of the Vienna MS; see Alexander, Believers, 677.
The bread of Samaritans is likened to pig-meat in mŠeb. 8:10.
tḤullin 2:20–21 (ed. Zuckermandel, 503). A similar move to redraw the boundaries of Judaism/Israel so as to exclude Jesus-oriented Jews is found in mSanh. 10:1. On this passage see Yuval, Israel, 114–138.
Alexander, Believers, 678; Boyarin, Dying, 22–41; Schäfer, Jesus, 41–62. It represents, says Schäfer, “an (early) attempt to establish boundaries, to delineate Judaism by eliminating heretics—in this particular case clearly heretics belonging to a group that defined itself by its belief in Jesus from Nazareth”. (60)
See Schremer, Brothers, 70–72, 91–94.
Boyarin, Dying, 17.
See Reed, Messianism, 23–62, esp. 34.
Reed, Messianism, 34.
On the indistinguishability of Jesus-oriented Jews and rabbinic Jews, as attested in early rabbinic texts, see Burns, Schism, 176, 189.
Brewer, Self, 475–482, esp. 478. Brewer notes that distinctiveness and maintenance of clear boundaries that differentiate members of a group from members of a different group are essential for groups to survive. Cf. Coser, Functions, 68 (quoting Simmel): “[W]here enough similarities continue to make confusions and blurred borderlines possible, points of difference need an emphasis not justified by the issue but only by the danger of confusion,” and Schremer, Brothers, 94–97, who likewise notes that a separation becomes necessary precisely in cases where it is difficult to distinguish between “them” and “us.”
In the third century, Origen, residing in Caesarea, mentions “Jews who believe in Jesus and have not left the law of their fathers, for they live according to it” (Cels. 2.1); in the fourth century Jerome speaks of “Jews who believe in Christ” (Epist. 112.13) and “want to be both Jews and Christians.” They “believe in Christ and keep all the commandments of the Law” (Sit. 112), cited in Wilken, John, 70–71.
Stanton, Elements, 305–324 sees Rec. 1.27–71 as “‘a foundation narrative’ of a community of Jewish believers in Jesus” and “one of our most important pieces of evidence for Jewish believers in Jesus” (322); Van Voorst, James, assumes a community of law-observant Jesus-believing Jews behind the text.
Jones, Source, 3–4; 159–167 considers the author to be a Jewish Christian writing in Judaea ca. 200 and Burns, Schism, 150 sees it as having been written by a Jewish author for Jewish readers in Palestine during the late second century. Except for a few fragments, the original Greek is lost. The text survives in Latin and Syriac translations and some fragments in Armenian. For the Latin text, see Rehm, Pseudoklementinen and for the Syriac, Lagarde, Clementis. A parallel translation of the Latin and Syriac versions, as well as the Armenian fragments, is found in Jones, Source. For a translation from Syriac, see also Jones, Pseudo-Clementines.
Cf. Reed, Christianity, 189–231, esp. 204–205, 210–212. For a survey of the status quaestionis on the issue of the presence of Jesus-oriented Jews in the Galilee during the early centuries CE; see Cirafesi, Christ-Followers, 293–327. Cirafesi argues for the existence of Jesus-oriented Jews in the Galilee, although not, nota bene, as a separate group.
Jubilees is an important source for the survey of Israel’s history, while the second part draws on the gospels of Matthew and Luke, and above all, on Acts; see Jones, Source, 138–142 and Jones, Pseudo-Clementines, 207–229, 230–251.
The approach to the gentile mission in Rec. 1.27–71 is ambivalent, and the Latin and Syriac translations differ. While the Latin version simply states that “the saving proclamation of the kingdom of God was sent out into the whole world” because all Jews had not embraced Jesus as the Messiah, the Syriac translation describes this development as a “confusion”. (1.42.1)
Translations of Rec. 1.27–71 are adapted from Jones, Source.
The Latin version has: de hoc enim solo nobis qui credimus in Iesum, adversum non credentes Iudaeos videtur esse differentia (“For only in this regard does there seem to be a difference between us who believe in Jesus and Jews who do not believe.” Jones, Source, 73 translates “between us who believe in Jesus and the unbelieving Jews,” but this carries a negative connotation not conveyed by the Latin.
Rec. 1.27–71 also testifies to animosity from Jews outside of its own group, mentioning rage against them among the Jews who do not believe. (1.53.1)
Baumgarten, Evidence, 39–50, esp. 47.
Bourgel, Holders, 171–200, esp. 174, 198–199. For ideas and traditions shared with rabbinic Jews, see 188–198.
For examples, see Jones, Source, 149.
Kinzer, Jerusalem.