Dunn's Partings 11: "The Parting of the Ways"

Chapter 12 is the concluding chapter of the book. Much of it is spent exploring how Judaism and Christianity today might relate to each other, and it ends with Dunn's sense that "At its historic heart, Christianity is a protest against any and every attempt to claim that God is our God and not yours" (337). It's interesting to think of him saying this at the Vatican. I don't really agree with Dunn here, for good or ill. Jesus and Paul were inclusive--if a person was willing to become a part of the kingdom. I say that as an observation.

The part of the chapter that I'm interested in as far as research is, however, the question of when Judaism and Christianity "parted." Dunn rightly indicates the sloppiness of the question. Rabbinic Judaism was not the whole of Judaism. It did not have the Jewish realm in its grip until the 300's, even though Javneh was recognized as the center of Jewdom by the Romans soon after the Fall of Jerusalem.

Jewish Christianity in its older sense continued. The tradition that Jerusalem Christians fled to Pella coincides with the rise of the Ebionites in that region in the second century. Such Christian Jews believed that Jesus was the Messiah but did not believe him to be divine in the sense of the Gospel of John. This group, like the Gnostics of Egypt, would eventually peter out.

Other forms of Judaism apparently flourished for a time after the destruction of Jerusalem. The time from AD70-135, when the Romans put an end to the bar Kokbah revolt, was "the golden age of Jewish apocalyptic" (306). Merkabah mysticism started. 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch both presume that the temple would be rebuilt. The two powers "heresy" comes into play.

Meanwhile Jews and Christians remain in contact. The pattern of synagogue leadership becomes the pattern of Christian assembly leadership (overseer and elders). Jewish texts like the Psalms of Solomon, Sibylline Oracles, Testament of Moses, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch were preserved by Christians, not by rabbinic Judaism.

Christians added to this literature and made it its own. Christians added chapters at the beginning and end of the Jewish 4 Ezra to make it the Christian 2 Esdras. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs are Christian, but draw on Jewish source material. The Jewish Martyrdom of Isaiah with some addition becomes the Christian Ascension of Isaiah.

Meanwhile, the rabbis begin to ostracize Christian Jews. In some places, they become included within the minim clause of the 18 Benedictions as heretics, unable to eat with other Jews or participate in synagogue liturgy. Copies of the Torah made by Christians are not considered sacred.

The LXX is rejected as an appropriate translation of the Hebrew Bible, and Aquila makes another that is not so susceptible to signature Christian interpretations (like Isaiah 7:14). Indeed, books from Sirach on are excluded from the rabbinic canon. Christians continue to use these books as Scripture.

Greco-Roman authors begin to recognize Christianity as distinct from Judaism. Tacitus may not completely see the distinction around 100, but Suetonius does just a little later. The fiscus Judaicus of Domitian, the "Jewish tax," included anyone who looked anything like a Jew in practice. But with Nerva in 96, a person could opt out simply by declaration. Dunn suggests, "there is something both sad and modern about the likely conclusion that government taxation policy played a significant part in the final parting of the ways" (317).

Dunn's conclusion about when the parting took place? Sloppiness to be sure. But "by the end of the second Jewish revolt, Christian and Jew were clearly distinct and separate" (318).