On the seventh day of Jimmy...

James Dunn passed away a week ago today, We have been going through one of his key works each day. So far we have looked at...

1. The Evidence for Jesus (1985)
2. Baptism in the Holy Spirit (1970)
3. Unity and Diversity in the New Testament (1977)
4. Christology in the Making (1980)
5. "Once more, ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ" (1991)
6. The New Perspective on Paul (2005)

I have also slipped in Jesus and the Spirit (1975), Romans 1 and 2 (1988), Jesus, Paul, and the Law (1990), Galatians (1993), and Paul and the Mosaic Law (1996).

1. The seventh book I want to mention is The Partings of the Ways: Between Christianity and Judaism and Their Significance for the Character of Christianity (1991).

The "new perspective" on Paul had at its core the surprisingly obvious realization that Paul was a Jew and, in his own mind, remained an Israelite his whole life. One of Dunn's final compilations was a 2011 book called Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels. Included in that volume is a great article from 1999 called, "Who Did Paul Think He Was?" It's just a perfect example of Dunn's lucidity, clarity, and evidence-based approach to questions.

So one side of the new perspective was a sense of the continuity between Paul and Judaism. The other side of the new perspective was a more balanced perspective on the nature of Judaism itself. Embarrassing stereotypes were called into question. For example, the writer of the Qumran hymns prays, "What is someone born of a woman among all your awesome works? ... His base is the guilt of sin... Only by your goodness is humanity acquitted" (1QH 5.20-21, 23). Sure doesn't sound like he thinks he can earn his salvation! [1]

2. This more accurate reassessment of Judaism was bound to prompt a similar reassessment of the historical Jesus. In the 1980s, Tom Wright coined the phrase, the "third quest" for the historical Jesus. It's core feature was, unsurprisingly, interpreting Jesus against a more accurate understanding of Judaism. For example, it has been all too easy over the years to function with a pretty cardboard sense of the Pharisees. Picture a cartoon villain with a long curly mustache. They just might have been a little more complex than that.

So the great trio of new perspectives--Sanders, Dunn, and Wright also made contributions to Jesus studies in the late twentieth century. Sanders' key work was Jesus and Judaism (1985). Wright's summative work on the historical Jesus was Jesus and the Victory of God (1997). I'll mention Dunn's work Jesus Remembered (2003) in three days.

3. The progression was all too predictable. Once Jesus, Paul, and Judaism were reassessed, the question arose--"If there was no immediate parting of Christianity from Judaism, when exactly was the 'parting of the ways'?" Dunn, once again, was right on top of the wave with our book d'jour, Partings of the Ways.

Even before Dunn gave his own answer to this question, there had been another Durham-Tübingen Symposium in 1989 on this topic. Dunn as usual sat in the driver's seat, about to assume the mantle in 1990 as Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at Durham. This chair was beyond the role of Professor, named after the greatest British New Testament scholar of the late nineteenth century. The conference volume was published as Jews and Christians: The Parting of the Ways AD70-135. 

4. Notice the slight difference in title between the conference volume and Dunn's 1991 book. The conference spoke of a "parting" in the singular, and located this parting to a specific time period between the destruction of Jerusalem and the bar Kokhba revolt. One take-away from that meeting must have been a sense on Dunn's part that it was more complicated than one monolithic parting: thus "partings" plural in the title.

This sentiment would follow in a number of other works by other authors in the years that ensued. Take, for example, the 2007 book, The Ways That Never Parted, edited by Becker and Reed. Daniel Boyarin would write a 2006 book called Border Lines, in which he uses the word "partitioning" of the ways, suggesting a much more complicated and fuzzy border between Judaism and Christianity in the centuries following Jesus. [2] I recently finished writing up my own thoughts on Hebrews on this question, finally published last year, A New Perspective on Hebrews: Rethinking the Parting of the Ways. Whether I am right or not on Hebrews, I'm proud of the summaries I gave in this book of the new perspective, the partings discussion, and debates over development of the worship of Jesus.

5. One might wonder when I am going to get to Dunn's book! His book is organized around what he calls the "four pillars" of Judaism. Of course he is going to get flack for this. I seem to remember that Jacob Neusner had at him, for example, just as he did at Sanders. Judaism is more a religion of practice than ideology, not to mention that Dunn here was echoing the concept of the five pillars of Islam.

The four are monotheism, election, covenant/law, and land/temple. The concept of monotheism itself has been deconstructed in the meantime, not least at a conference I attended at St. Andrews in 1998. It's essays were published as The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism.

Despite its imprecision, I often use this framework when I am explaining Deuteronomistic theology to students. There was one God for Israel, and one people for Yahweh. If they would serve him exclusively, he would bless them in their land. I think this is a fair summary of Deuteronomy 28-29 as well as Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings.

6. Dunn proceeds to the temple. In chapter three he notes that "Jesus had a very positive attitude to the Temple" (49). On the other hand, it seems true that Jesus "did not share the concerns or degree of concern regarding purity" that Pharisees did (58). Perhaps in that regard he was regarded as a threat. Dunn thinks Jesus' action in the temple is what likely set in motion his arrest (69). Dunn believes Jesus anticipated his death (71). These positions all seem credible to me, as is Dunn's conclusion to this chapter: "Jesus appears on this subject to stand well within the diversity of second Temple Judaism" (74).

Chapter 4 looks at evidence from the early church in Acts. He sees evidence here in Stephen as "the beginning of a radical critique of the Temple on the part of the infant Christian movement" (90). He sees here "the beginning of a breach between Christianity and the predominant Temple-centered Judaism of the mid-first century." He also suggests Hellenists like Stephen represented a split within the Jesus movement itself (99). I'm a little hesitant about this wording, but he was writing in 1991 (second edition 2006).

Chapter 5 then finishes the series of temple-related chapters. Dunn concludes that, with Paul's theology of sacrifice, "there is no longer a need for the sacrificial cult" (105). He takes the traditional view that Hebrews "was written to warn against the danger of a relapse into traditional Judaism" (117). Accordingly, he concludes that "it is difficult to avoid talking of a parting of the ways in the case of Hebrews" (121). He concludes similarly with John: "the movement for which he speaks has parted company with mainstream Judaism precisely at the point of the cult" (123). In scholarship, "cult" refers to the sacrificial system.

Well, I ended up parting with Jimmy on this chapter. If Hebrews and John were written after the destruction of the temple, it makes a difference. Rabbinic Judaism has not parted with Judaism because it doesn't need a physical temple! So if these books were written after the destruction of the temple, which I think they were, then they cannot be said to depart from Judaism on this score, in my opinion. Hebrews can then be seen as much as a consolation in the wake of the temple's destruction as a polemic against it.

As a side note, Dunn first delivered this book at a series of lectures at the Pontifical Institute in Rome (see p.119n.61). Let's just say that his teaching on Hebrews as precluding the need for any priest or human intermediary sparked some discussion! He was never in your face or had an animus to these things, but he was definitely a "T" personality who didn't shy away from saying what he thought, even if it was very controversial for the context. I remember the Q & A session at Asbury having a similar dynamic.

7. Chapters 6-8 deal with the question of covenant and land. Here Dunn brought his new perspective understandings to bear on the question of continuity and discontinuity. With regard to the Law, Dunn concludes that Jesus was not calling the Law itself into question but "the law understood in a factional or sectarian way" (149). With regard to Paul, Dunn saw the incident at Antioch in Galatians 2 as the beginning of a fissure that would eventually undermine the covenant pillar of Judaism (178). He concludes, "It was Paul who effectively undermined this third pillar of second Temple Judaism (183).

I might clarify that Paul himself did not see himself as undermining the Law (cf. Rom. 3:31), even if he started a trajectory that later Gentile Christianity would widen. As Dunn himself says, "Paul was attacking neither the law, nor the covenant... but the law as a boundary round Israel, marking off Jew from Gentile" (182).

Chapter 8 then looks at the New Testament in relation to Israel. He concludes, "they still wrote for those for whom the issue was not closed" (212). For example, "John was still fighting a factional battle within Judaism" (209). I have thus often said, along with others, that it is more accurate to speak of "Christian Jews" in the New Testament rather than "Jewish Christians." Indeed, I have even used the expression "Gentile Jews" for early Gentile Christians.

8. The next three chapters end the sequence with monotheism. He covers much of the same ground as Christology. He concludes chapter 9 on Jesus with a sense that "Jesus himself still stood well within the boundaries of second Temple Judaism at the point of Jewish monotheism" (240). Dunn ends chapter 10 with what I believe is a very important observation about Paul: "Had Paul's christology been equally, or more contentious [than his position on the Law] at this time for his fellow Jews, we would surely have heard of it from Paul's own letters" (270).

For John, Dunn draws a mixed inference. "John saw himself still as a monotheist" (299). But from the standpoint of emerging rabbinic Judaism, "Christian claims for Jesus had taken a step too far. From their perspective the parting of the ways had already happened" (300).

9. Dunn concludes the book with a sense that Judaism before AD70 was quite diverse and thus that something like a normative Judaism did not emerge until the rabbinic Judaism following the destruction of Jerusalem (312). Even this claim can be questioned, however. He would thus say that "the period between the two Jewish revolts (66-70 and 132-135) was decisive for the parting of the ways."

More significant, he would argue, was a parting of the ways "between mainstream Christianity and Jewish Christianity" (313). He would argue that what was more in continuity with earliest Christianity would become heretical Jewish Christianity in the second century (e.g., the Ebionites). He concludes, "By the end of the second Jewish revolt, Christian and Jew were clearly distinct and separate" (318). Again, the book mentioned above by Becker and Reed would dispute even this conclusion, as would Boyarin.

[1] If I might wend my wares a little, I suspect that some of the inaccurate assessment came from the fact that Lutheran and Reformed thinkers were doing it. These branches accuse Methodism of the same sort of works righteousness that they saw in Judaism. The irony is that this "works righteousness" is none other than what the New Testament teaches!

N. T. Wright has done a good job of showing the role of works even in justification in Paul's writings. See, for example, Justification. As a small sample, see 2 Corinthians 5:10: "It is necessary for us all to appear before the judgment seat of Christ for each to give an account for the things s/he did in the body, whether good or evil."

The two volume "the Reformation strikes back" was Justification and Variegated Nomism.

[2] I listened to the conclusion yesterday of the Enoch Seminar conference on the Origins of Evil. Boyarin was critiquing the too facile use of terms like Judaism, Gnosticism, monotheism, etc. He reminded me of Heikki Räisänen--so detailed oriented that he finds it difficult to label these entities. He sees only the differences. In his mind they all fall apart.

5. A Biblical Theology of Israel

5.1 One God, One People

• "Four pillars" of deuteronomistic theology: henotheism, election, covenant, land
• We have already talked about the henotheism of Israel and its progression. Exodus 20 seems to be patterned on a suzerainty treaty.
• Deut. 32:8-9 speaks of God choosing Israel in the great nation matching (election). We've already talked about deuteronomistic theology and the blessings and curses of Deut. 28.
• Psalm 82 pictures YHWH as king of the gods.
• Israel initially was an amphictyony. Then it was a monarchy. Then the Law took a certain center stage and it was run by priests centered in the temple.
• Israel was not greatly eschatological but had more of a cyclical view of history. The apocalypticists of the late 200s/early 100s BC introduced the linear components that would become characteristic of Christianity.

5.2 A Biblical Theology of the Law

• The cultic parts of the Law were fulfilled in Christ.
• The civil parts of the Law were heavily ensconced in the Ancient Near East.
• "Christ's law" is the law of love, which includes most but not all of the Ten Commandments.
• Sexual ethics seem to occupy an ambiguous zone in relation to Paul's broader view of the Law but are retained as part of NT ethics.
• The early church debated what we might call "Jew-specific laws," laws that especially pertained to the ethnic boundary between Jews and Gentiles (circumcision, food laws, most purity laws, Sabbath observance). Paul considers these not binding on Gentile believers although other early Christian leaders seem to have disagreed.

5.3 Parting of the Ways?

• Neither Paul nor any of the original disciples of Jesus saw faith in Jesus as a parting with the faith of Israel or its Scriptures. That is, the New Testament is not supercessionist.
• None of the biblical authors ceased believing in one God. The way that Jesus related to the one God is debated. Those who hold to an early high Christology see Jesus as included in some way within the one God. Others see this inclusion taking place later in a Gentile context.
• The election of Israel seems to be a central feature of much of the New Testament even though the gospel is universalized. Matthew sees the mission to the world emerging from Israel. Luke-Acts see us in a middle time, "times of the Gentiles," but with Jerusalem and its temple as the center of the mission. Paul says that Israel's election is "without repentance" (Rom. 11:29).
• Three positions on Romans 11: a) replacement theory, b) the true ethnic Israel reading, and c) the final return reading. Perhaps the third one fits Romans 11:26 best. But we are left with 1) the fact that current Israel is not believing Israel--it is not yet the Israel of promise and 2) we must remain somewhat agnostic about God's current plan with regard to the events of the last century. We will know when it is all finished.
• The Gospel of John seems to come the closest to the boundaries of Judaism: 1) it most equates Jesus with God the Father; 2) it most most distances Jesus from Judaism ("your law"); 3) it most has the feel of Christianity as a wholesale replacement for the Jewish festivals in addition to the temple; 4) it distances the worship of God from Jerusalem and makes it a matter of the Spirit.

Previous "chapters"
Chapter 1: What is Biblical Theology?
Chapter 2: Theology of God
Chapter 3: Creation and Consummation

4.1-3 Sin and the Fall
4.4 Sin in the Old Testament
4.5 Sin in the New Testament
4.6 Atonement in the Old Testament
4.7 Atonement in the New Testament

Grafting Gentiles into the Tree

In the first chapter, we saw that one aspect of the recently revised perspectives on Paul and Judaism was a greater sense of the continuity between Israel and earliest Christianity. Indeed, throughout the book I have argued that it is much more accurate to speak of Christian Jews than it is to speak of Jewish Christians. Even Gentile believers in Christ were, at the beginning, something along the lines of Gentile converts to Israel. When I speak of "Gentile Christians," I am in a sense speaking of a certain species of "Gentile Israelite."

In this chapter, we now want to look at Hebrews in relation to the Jewish sense of election, covenant, and the Law in its environment. The previous chapter looked at the Christology of Hebrews in relation to Jewish "monotheism." Earlier chapters have looked at Hebrews in relation to the temple, which speaks to Jewish conceptions of land and redemption. [1] Now we want to ask to what extent Hebrews might reflect a partitioning or parting of the ways with Judaism in relation to election, covenant, and Torah. [2]

At this point it is perilous to enter into Pauline waters, even though we must. Much like the first chapter, we will simply have to take certain positions and more or less by-pass the significant amount of debate that surrounds an issue such as this one. The amount of literature on Paul and the Law is staggering to the mind. To some extent, we will simply have to comfort ourselves with the fact that the position we will take here in relation to Paul has already been defended elsewhere by others, even though we cannot hope to rehearse an exhaustive argument.

So we begin with Paul as potentially relevant background to Hebrews on the question of election, covenant, and the Jewish Law...

[1] In Paul Was Not a Christian: The Original Message of a Misunderstood  Apostle (New York: HarperOne, 2009), Pamela Eisenbaum considers redemption one of three key components of Judaism at the time, along with worship and Torah (68). N. T. Wright considers her category of redemption to correspond loosely to his third element, "eschatology," alongside monotheism and election, in Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 612 **.

[2] See chapter 1. For language of "partitioning," see especially D. Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2004).

To what were Gentiles converting...

Publishers often don't like it.  It's always a first draft and thus not polished.  It exposes me to unnecessary criticism from people I might otherwise be on good terms with (and I'm not talking of a single unified group but people who switch back and forth from fan to opponent depending on the issue). For these reasons it is unfortunate that I write with the greatest motivation and style when there is at least a possibility that someone is listening and enjoying.  So I'm going to try to jump start some scholarly writing today by writing a few hundred words here...
_____________
... The form of Judaism to which they [Gentiles] were converting would have been the Christian Judaism of the previous chapter. These were Jews who did not see their faith as an alternative to Israel's faith but as its truest understanding and culmination. Arguably, Christian faith in Jesus as Messiah initially assigned a name to the messianic expectation of other Jewish groups. These were groups looking for God to restore the kingdom of Israel by way of someone from the Davidic line. [1] In earliest Christianity, this faith almost immediately transformed into something much more extensive in scope. Nevertheless, as we will argue in a subsequent chapter, it did not cross any obvious line in the first century that would clearly have demarcated it as a separate religion from its parent Judaism. [2]

The ritual of baptism in itself was not uniquely Christian.  The most unique feature of the baptism of John the Baptist was its "one time" nature. [3] That is to say, ritual washings were a normal part of temple purity, indicated by the numerous miqvaot or cleansing pools throughout Israel. [4] The site at Qumran had such a pool at both of its entrances.  Perhaps you descended unclean down into the water on one side and then ascended clean on the other, now purified to enter the Qumran community. [5] What distinguished the baptism of John was the fact that it arguably was preparing for a unique event in history, the arrival of the restored kingdom of Israel on earth. [6]  It was thus conceptualized to be a one time event before the arrival of the promised king.

The origins of early Christian thinking about the Spirit perhaps involved the convergence of several trajectories. In this regard, Joel 2:28-32 surely played an important role, and it was probably connected with other important passages for early Christian understanding such as the new covenant imagery of Jeremiah 31 and the association of Jesus with passages in Isaiah.  The Dead Sea Scrolls indicate that imagery of God's holy spirit was already in use within Israel, [7] and the miracles of the early church no doubt provided ample events with which to link God's Spirit. [8] By the time we reach the book of Acts, baptism associated with the Holy Spirit came to distinguish baptism in Jesus' name from the baptisms performed by John the Baptist (cf. Acts 19:1-7).

All of these distinguishing elements within Judaism were intra-Jewish distinctions rather than distinctions that would have separated Christian Jews from Judaism "proper." [9]  In relation to Gentiles, the earliest Christians debated what a Gentile would need to do in order to be fully "in" the people of God...

[1] It is not at all clear that all Jewish groups of the time had this expectation (see James H. Charlesworth, The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity [Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2009]). The best known text in this regard is Psalms of Solomon 17.  The provenance of Psalms of Solomon is not agreed, although some have suggested it could be Essene (***). The Dead Sea Scrolls also have a few messianic texts (***; see John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star.

[2] See chapter 5.  As we will argue, this interpretation is true in part because the Judaism of the time did not have entirely clear boundary lines in the first place in relation to what it meant to believe in "one God."

[3] ***

[4] ***

[5] *** James VanderKam...

[6] ***

[7] ***

[8] Whether one believes that supernatural miracles can occur or not, it seems beyond question that the earliest church could identity any number of events that it considered to be miracles, not only in the ministry of Jesus but also in the early church. See ***.

[9] We remember from the first chapter that Judaism at the time of Christ was diverse enough that many prefer to speak in terms of Judaisms rather than Judaism at the time as some monolithic entity. See pp. **.

Parables of the Kingdom 2

... continued from yesterday.
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Given the fact that these parables have traveled from Jesus through decades of Jesus-followers to the individual gospel writers, it is not surprising sometimes to find a "layered-ness" to them.  For example, it is no coincidence that parables involving money and women stand out in Luke, because these are some of its emphases.  It is not surprising to find more pronounced parables about judgment in Matthew, because Matthew specializes among the gospels in weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

Similarly, it is not surprising that we do not always pick up on the "political" overtones Jesus' parables probably had originally in terms of Israel as a "nation." In the next volume, I will argue that all four of the gospels in their current form likely date to after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70, so it is no surprise if we have to dig a little to hear them as the Galilean peasants on the countryside would have.  The gospels were written to present Jesus to their audiences and so understandably focus on Jesus' ministry in terms that apply most to their communities of faith in the late first century.

For Luke, this was the "times of the Gentiles" (cf. Luke 21:24).  For Matthew, this was the time when the mission had shifted to all the nations (cf. Matt. 28:19).  By contrast, Jesus' primary focus on earth was surely on Israel and the Jews (cf. Matt. 10:5-6), and even then only on a subset of Israel. [1] The last chapter showed how likely it was that the restoration of Israel politically was part of John the Baptist's message, and it is not hard to find hints of this dynamic in the gospels even as they now stand (e.g., Matt. 19:28).

Originally, Jesus' audiences would not have distinguished the kingdom of God from the kingdom of re-established Israel, and it would have been understood undoubtedly as a kingdom to come on earth.  In the period after Easter, it no doubt was clear to Jesus-followers that only those who accepted Jesus as the messiah would be part of this kingdom.  Nevertheless, even Paul argues that the vast majority of Israel would eventually come to have this faith (cf. Rom. 11:25-32).

These observations remind us of how differently we read the Bible than its first audiences would have heard them.  We tend to think of the church as something completely separate from Israel as a nation.  Similarly, over the centuries Christians have tended to think more in terms of heaven and hell than in terms of a coming kingdom on earth.  Recent days have seen a movement to recognize that the Bible primarily teaches about eternity on a restored earth after a resurrection of our bodies. [2]

And there is an increasing recognition that Christianity did not become a separate religion from Judaism perhaps until after all the books of the New Testament were written, [3] with some arguing they were not completely distinct even in the early 300s. [4] In the thinking of the New Testament, Gentiles were added to the kingdom of (true) Israel.  Christianity was not some new religion, and Gentiles who converted to Christianity saw themselves converting to a form of Judaism.  It was not until around AD200 that the Gentile Christian Tertullian made his famous comments about Christianity being a "third race," neither Jewish or Gentile. [5]

The point is that we can usually read Jesus' parables in more than one way.  Originally, they had much to say to the Galilean Jews who came to hear him from the surrounding villages.  Yet the gospel writers also "translated" them in ways that spoke to increasingly Gentile audiences in the late first century.  And the way the gospels have sometimes generalized them has also helped us to hear truths that apply directly to us even today...

[1] The "lost sheep" of Israel, and even then, primarily the lost sheep in Galilee.

[2] E.g., N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2008) and Joel B. Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008).  Wright and Green may at times overstate their case, but their fundamental argument seems beyond reasonable doubt.

[3] Cf. James D. G. Dunn, The Partings of the Ways: Between Christianity and Judaism and Their Significance for the Character of Christianity, 2nd ed. (London: SCM, 2011).

[4] Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed, The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007); also Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2006).

[5] To the Gentiles 1.8.

Matthew and anti-Judaism 2

I'm reading through Terence Donaldson's Jews and Anti-Judaism in the New Testament.  My summary of the first chapter is here: Introduction.

Today I want to summarize his again excellent chapter 2 on Matthew.

Donaldson ends up laying out three basic positions on the issue.  But it is worthwhile to get the mother of all potentially anti-semitic verses out on the table before giving them, as he does: "Then the people as a whole answered, 'His blood be on us and on our children!'" (Matt. 27:25, NRSV).  This verse has often been taken in Christian history as an indication that Jews remain perpetually under blame for the death of Jesus.  Throughout history, people who call themselves Christians have used the verse as an excuse to persecute and kill Jews, just as some people would do toward homosexuals today hiding behind other verses.

The three positions are:
1. Rejection of ethnic Israel and replacement by a Gentile Church
This interpretation of Matthew sees God having bent over backwards to give Israel every opportunity to respond so that their final rejection and replacement are finally justified.  In the end, the Church is almost completely Gentile.  The Great Commission is understood to say, "Go and make disciples of all the Gentiles"... and not the Jews, by implication.  This is a possible translation.

This interpretation sees a transition within the Gospel of Matthew from a beginning that still holds out hope for Israel to an end that has completely abandoned Israel.  The Gospel begins with a genealogy that firmly connects Jesus to Israel.  The mission in Matthew 10 is to the lost sheep of Israel and excludes Gentiles and  Samaritans.  Initially, Matthew distinguishes the leaders of Israel from the crowds.  Then, in this interpretation, the distinction falls away at the time of crucifixion, where the crowds join the leaders. In this interpretation, the Great Commission now excludes Israel and the mission is now toward the Gentiles, with the Church fully replacing ethnic Israel, which is now soundly rejected.  Some with this position might even argue that Matthew was written by a Gentile to a Gentile church.

2. Rejection of ethnic Israel and replacement by a Church with both Jews and Gentiles
This is a somewhat softer version of the replacement interpretation.  Israel is rejected and replaced by a "third race" that is neither Jew nor Gentile.  So "even if--as is quite likely--Matthew sees the destruction of Jerusalem as divine punishment on 'this generation' for its persecution of the line of prophets that culminates with Jesus (23.29-36), the idea of definitive rejection does not necessarily follow" (41).

By the  way, I wholeheartedly agree with this quote.  The way Matthew has edited the Parable of the Wedding Banquet in 22:7 implies that Matthew was written after the destruction (compare the version in Luke 14). I see comments like 27:25 more as explanatory and backward looking than forward looking--this is why God allowed Jerusalem to be destroyed in the past.  I can accept that it might also have functioned as a polemic against competing Jewish groups of the time (e.g., perhaps the Pharisees about to set up shop at Jamnia).

Against the "complete shift" version #1 above, this version argues that the people are once again distinguished from Israel's leaders after the crucifixion in 27:64.  And throughout Matthew, the phrase "all the nations" presumably includes Israel (e.g., 25:32).  Cannot the Great Commission be read as an extension of the mission to the nations rather than a shutting of the door to Israel?

3. The Church as the lost sheep of Israel, joined by Gentiles
This is my position and the one to which I believe Donaldson is most sympathetic.  In this perspective, "Matthew has an Israel-centered view of the group to which he and his readers belong" (43).  The author thus has a "remnant or sectarian outlook."  The Gentiles thus join the restored portion of Israel rather than replacing them.

On the one hand, "Matthew seems to have little interest in those aspects of the law that would have differentiated Jew from Gentile (e.g., circumcision, food laws)" (44). On the other, he is quite keen to see Jesus bringing a fulfillment to the OT Scriptures, including its law.  Matthew thus argues for the most meaningful kind of continuity between believers and the Israel of the past.

As far as the purpose of the rhetoric, most consider it "social formation."  The goal is not so much to vilify others as to create internal group cohesion (kind of like when I go Wesleyan on the blog).  Another interesting twist Donaldson mentions is the irony of Christ's blood being upon someone.  Why yes, his blood is on us to save us from our sins (1:21)!

Jews and Anti-Judaism 1

I have a book review to write on Terence Donaldson's, Jews and Anti-Judaism in the New Testament: Decision Points and Divergent Interpretations.  I read the first chapter yesterday and found it a delight.  What a great presentation of the lay of the scholarly land!  I'm also writing on related issues in Hebrews this week so the convergence is a great serendipity for me.

Chapter 1 is the Introduction, which gives the back discussion on the question of antisemitism and the New Testament.  The issue became very pertinent after WW1, especially with Jules Isaac's book Jesus and Israel.  Isaac had written much of the material on the run from Nazis.  His wife and daughter died in concentration camps.

Isaac was not attacking Christian faith per se, but could legitimately point out that the Nazi perspective on the Jews grew easily from a centuries old tradition that was a Christian tradition.  It included a scholarly and popular climate that painted Judaism as degenerate at the time of Christ, assigned collective guilt to the Jewish people for Christ's death, and considered the dispersion of the Jews a divine punishment for their crime.

The chapter cites other scholars who pursued the issue and some of the helpful distinctions that followed the later discussion.  These included Gregory Baum, who initially put early Christian polemic in the category of denunciations of Israel carried out by the prophets... thus not anti-Semitic.  Rosemary Ruether by contrast argued that there was no way to rid Christianity of anti-Judaism because its view of Christ demands a polemical interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures.  James Parkes argued that it was not until after the war with Rome in AD66 that there ensued a "parting of the ways" (10).

The rest of the chapter is its brilliance.  Donaldson carefully and insightfully divides the issue into its parts.  He does not at this point so much give answers as present the discussion and its options.

Is the New Testament anti-semitic?
Because Christianity became overwhelmingly Gentile, we have to at least address this issue in the use of New Testament texts, but many have argued that it doesn't make much sense to say that documents themselves, since they were written by Jews, were anti-Jew.  Edward Flannery, for example, sees anti-Judaism as different from anti-semitism, as theological.  "It rejects Judaism as a way of salvation but not the Jews as a people" (14).

Is the New Testament anti-Judaic?
Or does it fall more in the category of the prophets or a sect like at Qumran?  Douglas Hare identifies three types of anti-Judaism (what follows are my words): 1) prophetic, 2) sectarian, and 3) outsider.  The prophets were clearly not anti-semitic or anti-Israel.  They were trying to correct it.  The Qumran sect was anti-the rest of Judaism, but were still Jews arguing for the right form of Judaism.  In the second century then, with the outsider comments of Gentile Christians like Ignatius and Justin Martyr, we probably have hit a form of anti-Judaism proper.

Thus Donaldson concludes that the term anti-Judaism would fit the last type but not the first type (into which category Hare put Jesus and John the Baptist).  Whether the second type fits the term Donaldson considers a matter of a spectrum.

Is the New Testament supercessionist?
That is, does the NT see the Christian church replacing and superseding ethnic Israel.  For Donaldson, approaching the issue in this way misses out some pieces.  For example, it formulates the issue negatively--what is the discontinuity--more than positively--what was the continuity.  It also does not include individuals like Marcion or the Gnostics, who did not even believe the OT was legitimate in the first place.

Kendall Soulen has distinguished types of supercessionism, each of which has a different tone.  "Punitive" supercessionism sees the replacement as a matter of punishment for Israel.  "Economic" supercessionism has to do with God's plan for different periods of history.  There is also a mixed view that only sees the Gentiles replacing the part of Israel that did not believe, while the part that did remains unsuperseded.

Does the NT reflect a painful parting of the ways?
A lively discussion has emerged in recent decades, with Ways That Never Parted arguing that Jewish and Christian social groups interpenetrated off and on even to the time of Constantine.  Daniel Boyarin has argued that "partitioning" would be a better word than "parting," and James Dunn has argued for "partings" plural rather than singular.  A key here is that since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we are far more aware of the diversity of first century Judaism (sometimes even put in the plural, Judaisms) than we were before.

Set up for the book
Early in the chapter, Donaldson gives three aspects of any document that need to be taken into account when assessing this issue.  First is the identity of those who are expressing statements (the "subject").  Second is the identify of those to whom they are speaking (the "object").  Lastly there is the tone or the intention behind their expression.  He will use this three fold rubric in the rest of the book, as he looks at the gospels and Paul.

Great start to the book!

New perspectives on Judaism

I thought I would take down some notes on the change that took place in the late twentieth century on our understanding of Judaism at the time of Christ in relation to early Christianity. These changes brought on three movements in New Testament studies: 1) the new perspective on Paul, 2) the third quest for the historical Jesus, and 3) the partings of the ways discussion.

More than any other figure, E. P. Sanders catalyzed these movements with his 1977 Paul and Palestinian Judaism. In Jesus studies, his Jesus and Judaism was less momentous, but still significant. Prior to him, we might point to rumblings like W. D. Davies' Paul and Rabbinic Judaism. But Krister Stendahl's "Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West" ranks up there for me as the real tour de force, my starting point.

Again, following my stream of consciousness to get these notes out, some basic shifts are:

New Perspective on Judaism
1. Judaism in general believed that acceptance before God was a matter of God's grace. No one could earn favor with God. All have sinned.

2. Jews kept the Law in response to God's grace, not to earn it. Keeping the Law was about "staying in" not "getting in."

New Perspective on Paul
1. Paul did not see himself as changing religions when he believed on Christ. Paul is not his Christian name but a name he probably had his entire life.

2. Paul did not consider himself a miserable failure at keeping the Law before he believed on Christ.

3. Even after believing, works remained a major part of Paul's equation, so much so that works might nullify one's salvation.

Third Quest for the Historical Jesus
1. Emphasis on the fact that Jesus was a Jew. Jesus' message likely fit within the spectrum of options current within Palestinian Judaism at the time. Jesus' message fits well within apocalyptic Judaism, as does John the Baptist's.

2. Jesus is not likely to have sparred much with Pharisees in Galilee, since they were overwhelmingly located in Jerusalem (Sanders).

3. The picture of Pharisees in Matthew in itself is not the entire picture. The portrait in the other gospels is more positive, especially in Luke-Acts. Pharisees were not all legalists, and Matthew's portrayal may have as much to do with conflicts at the time of his writing (ca. AD75-80) as with conflicts at the time of Jesus himself.

Partings of the Ways
1. Christianity was a form of Judaism in the first century, not a distinct religion. Gentile converts would have seen themselves converting to a form of Judaism. There was no official Roman policy relating to Christians in the first century. The question of whether Christianity was a "religio licita," a legal religion, was not a major factor in the first century.

2. The one of the Eighteenth Benedictions relating to heretics was not in play in the first century. There was no Jewish policy on expelling Christians from synagogues.

3. The early Christians did not see their worship of Jesus as a violation of monotheism, although different scholars explain this phenomenon in different ways.

4. The contribution I hope to make to this discussion is the claim that most Christians also stood within the main options for attitudes toward the temple while it stood.

What have I missed? I may edit this list as things occur to me...