Friday Review: Jewish Christianity Reconsidered 2

I was able to read a couple more "chapters" this week. Let me stick to items of particular interest and/or relevance to my research.

Chapter 2: "The Jerusalem Church," by Craig Hill of Wesley Theological Seminary in DC

• "Early Christ believers in the Jerusalem church continued to regard themselves as Jews" (41, 56)--absolutely, not in doubt
• "Paul did not possess authority in the early church equal to that of either Peter or James" (43)--certainly
• "Nowhere in Paul's correspondence is there evidence of a disagreement with the Jerusalem church over christology" (44)--this is significant and often unnoticed
• Jerusalem believers might justly be called "Jewish Christians" if 1) they retained common and important elements of Judaism while 2) venerating Jesus in a way unparalleled elsewhere in Judaism.
• Hill singles out three "common and important elements of Judaism," namely 1) Israel, 2) the Law, and 3) the Temple. His argument is that the Jerusalem Christians still valued each as they did "BC."
• With regard to Israel, I agree with Hill that both Paul and Acts look to the eventual restoration of Israel as a nation.
• With regard to the Law, Hill rightly suggests that the Jerusalem church believed that, while Gentiles were only obligated to live up to the standard of "aliens" in the land, the Jerusalem believers continued to observe the Jewish law in its particulars. In my opinion, Paul only modified his law observance but probably did not abandon it entirely in its particulars.
• Although he does not flesh it out as much as I would like, I agree with Hill that the temple probably continued to function as normal in the lives of the Jerusalem believers. What I would add is my hypothesis that, regardless of how they understood Christ's death, they probably did not think it in any way negated the temple cultus.
• Hill clearly makes his bed with Larry Hurtado on the issue of Christ-devotion being early and unique in terms of Judaism. He believes both baptism and the Lord's Supper tradition originated in Jerusalem. Fair enough. On Christ-devotion, the question for me is whether it defied Jewish norms or was merely completely unique.

Chapter 3: "Paul and Christ-believing Jews Whom He Opposes," by Jerry Sumney of Lexington Theological Seminary

• 2 Corinthians--Given Paul's counterarguments in 11-12, his opponents are Jewish persons in the Corinthian church but, according to Sumney, have a kind of "prosperity gospel" approach. If Paul were truly an apostle, God would prosper him and he would take support from them. Instead he suffered and did not take support.
• I'm not sure about Sumney's delineation of the opponents (and I may have skewed it a little), but the most interesting point to me here is Sumney's claim that a Jewish background was part of the credential mix--being Jewish was thought by the Corinthians to put you higher on the spiritual food chain!
• Galatians--The issue is whether Gentile believers should be circumcised. Sumney says that Paul's opponents are claiming that Paul himself teaches that believers need to be circumcised (5:11).
• Very interesting is Sumney's claim that the disagreement is not over the "work of Christ" and that Paul's argument for how the Galatian Gentile Christ-believers are to appropriate that saving work was not the only gospel that might bring someone into contact with that saving work. The issue was in the interfacing of Jewish and Gentile Christians, table fellowship in particular.
• Bottom line: Sumney doesn't see the controversy at Galatia so much over theology as over the association of Jewish and Gentile Christians and who can eat together. While I'll need to think more about the above, he I think is right when he suggests that Paul was redrawing the boundary lines of the people of God with "in Christ" being the primary boundary and Israel second. For James and others, Israel remains an intact boundary for Jews, with the "in Christ" playing out differently for the Gentiles.
• By the end of the chapter, Sumney has abandoned the term "Jewish Christianity," and I agree. The term is a poor one to refer to Jerusalem Christians since Paul and even some of his opponents at Corinth are Jewish Christians. "There is no single way--or even only two ways--of being a Christ-believer and Jewish in the first century" (78).

I had wanted to get through more of this book this week--there are interesting chapters on everything from James to the Ebionites. But I have to move on...