Negotiating Identities

Conflict, Conversion, and Consolidation in Early Judaism and Christianity (200 BCE–600 CE)

Karin Hedner Zetterholm, Anders Runesson, Cecilia Wassén, Magnus Zetterholm

• Publisher: Fortress Academic
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781978784505
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Covering the period from 200 BCE to 600 CE, this book describes important aspects of identity formation processes within early Judaism and Christianity, and shows how negotiations involving issues of ethnicity, stereotyping, purity, commensality, and institution building contributed to the forming of group identities. Over time, some of these Jewish group identities evolved into non-Jewish Christian identities, others into a rabbinic Jewish identity, while yet others remained somewhere in between. The contributors to this volume trace these developments in archaeological remains as well as in texts from the Qumran movement, the New Testament and the reception of Paul's writings, rabbinic literature, and apocryphal and pseudepigraphical writings, such as the Book of Dreams and the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies. The long timespan covered in the volume together with the combined expertise of scholars from various fields make this book a unique contribution to research on group identity, Jewish and Christian identity formation, the Partings-of-the-ways between Judaism and Christianity, and interactions between Jews and Christians.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: Exploring the Intersection between Judaism and Christianity in Their Formative Phases
• Chapter 1: Setting the Stage: The Variety of Judaism and the Origin of Christianity
• Part I: Polemics and Sectarian Identities (Second Century BCE–First Century CE)
• Chapter 2: Competition rather than Conflict: Identity Discourse in the Qumran Rule Scrolls
• Chapter 3: Meals, Identity, and Purity in the Qumran Movement
• Chapter 4: Was Gentile Reclamation an Apocalyptic Apologetic?: Ethnic Identities in the Book of Dreams as Precedent for Ethnic Reasoning in the Early Jesus Movement
• Chapter 5: Slip-Slidin’ Away: Rethinking the “Parting of the Ways”
• Chapter 6: Where Do We Go from Here?: Polemics and Sectarian Identities
• Part II: Intra-Jewish Interaction and the Role of Non-Jews within the Jesus Movement (Second Century BCE–First Century CE)
• Chapter 7: Gentile Alterity and Ethnic Solidarity: The Role of Group Categorization in Understanding Mark as Jewish Literature
• Chapter 8: Gentile Sinners: A Brief History of an Ancient Stereotype
• Chapter 9: Hypodescent in Two Ancient Jewish Writers: Jubilees and Paul on Mixed Marriages
• Chapter 10: Circumcision in Early Christian Sources: Identifying Difference after Paul
• Chapter 11: Where Do We Go from Here?: Intra-Jewish Interaction and the Role of Non-Jews within the Jesus Movement
• Part III: Conflict and Coexistence in Institutional Contexts
• Chapter 12: Space and Ritual in the Ancient Synagogue and Early Church in the Levant
• Chapter 13: Jewish Christ-Followers in Capernaum before the Fourth Century?: Reconsidering the Texts and Archaeology
• Chapter 14: Christ Assemblies within a Jewish Context: Reconstructing a Social Setting for the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies
• Chapter 15: Beyond the Parting of the Ways: Institutional Contexts as Matrices for the Formation of Judaism and Christianity
• Chapter 16: Where Do We Go from Here?: Conflict and Coexistence in Institutional Contexts
• Part IV: Ritual Purity and Rabbinic Ideas of the Christian Other
• Chapter 17: Along Ethnic Lines: The Case for Stepped Pools and Chalk Vessels as Markers of Jewish Purity Observance
• Chapter 18: Scriptural Hermeneutics and Purity Laws in the Clementine Homilies: Mainstream or Marginal?
• Chapter 19: Nazarenes (נוצרים) in Rabbinic Sources: What Does a Study of the Term Reveal about Rabbinic Attitudes to Christians?
• Chapter 20: “It Is Better to Cleave to Esau”: Rabbinic Perceptions of Esau as the “Other Within”
• Chapter 21: Where Do We Go from Here?: Ritual Purity and Rabbinic Ideas of the Christian Other
• Concluding Discussion and Evaluation: Negotiating Identities
• Bibliography
• Index of Modern Authors
• Subject Index
• Index of Ancient Sources
• About the Contributors