Jewish Ways of Following Jesus: Redrawing the Religious Map of Antiquity

461 Pages·2010·8.36 MB·English

by  Edwin K. Broadhead

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen
zum Neuen Testament
Herausgeber/Editor
Jorg Frey (Zurich)
Mitherausgeber/Associate Editors
Friedrich Avemarie (Marburg)
Markus Bockmuehl (Oxford)
Hans-Josef Klauck (Chicago, IL)
266

Edwin K. Broadhead
Jewish Ways of Following Jesus
Redrawing the Religious Map of Antiquity
Mohr Siebeck
EDWIN K. BROADHEAD, born 1955; 1977 B.A., Mississippi College; 1981 M. Div., Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary; 1986 PhD, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; 1991 Dr.
theol., University of Zurich; additional studies at Bern, Tubingen, Basel, and Oxford; As­
sociate Professor at Berea College, Berea, Kentucky.
ISBN 978-3-16-150304-7
ISSN 0512-1604 (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament)
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliogra-
phie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
© 2010 by Mohr Siebeck, Tubingen, Germany.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted
by copyright law) without the publisher's written permission. This applies particularly to
reproduction, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems.
The book was typeset by Computersatz Staiger in Rottenburg/N., printed by Gulde-Druck
in Tubingen on non-aging paper and bound by Buchbinderei Spinner in Ottersweier.
Printed in Germany.
dedicated to
Rev. Loretta Reynolds D. theol.
y
esteemed colleague
dear friend
beloved spouse

Acknowledgements
This venture into the world of Jewish Christianity is the product of an intense
year of research and reflection at Oxford University. In a larger sense, the insights
reached here represent the most recent stage of an interesting professional jour­
ney. My commitment to Christian faith and discipleship led me to critical study
of the texts of the New Testament, particularly the traditions of Jesus' teaching.
After a period of exploring the gospels from both a literary and a historical cri­
tical perspective, my interests turned to the historical Jesus and to the stages of
tradition between Jesus and the gospels. Further scholarly attention was given to
the role played by traditions such as the Sayings Tradition (Q) and the Gospel of
Thomas. All these studies were carried out with an eye to the developmental his­
tory and the diversity of early Christianity. These concerns led naturally to an in­
terest in the Jewish profile of Jesus and his earliest followers, but also to the pos­
sibility that Jewish ways of following Jesus endured in various times and places.
I am particularly grateful for those who helped me to carry out a sabbatical year
at Oxford. Professor Christopher Tuckett paved the way with guidance and with
timely introductions. I am particularly grateful to Professor Martin Goodman for
his interest and engagement with my project at a very busy time in his own work.
His guidance in the field of Jewish studies and his probing questions about my
ideas proved invaluable. For the time and support to carry out such a project, I am
grateful to my home institution, Berea College of Berea, Kentucky.
A special note of thanks is due for Wolfson College of Oxford, who accepted
me as a visiting scholar and provided a base of support and collegiality. I am
grateful for the support offered by a variety of Oxford libraries. Chief among
these is the Theological Faculty Library and its helpful staff: Kate Alderson-
Smith, Richard Budgen, Elizabeth Birchall, John Bardwell. The Wolfson College
library and its director, Fiona Wilkes, provided a comfortable place for a portion
of my research. The Bodlean Library, the Sackler Library, and the library of the
Oriental Institute were boundless sources for a variety of obscure texts, ancient
and modern.
I am grateful for the friendship of colleagues who accompanied my journey.
Members of the Common Room and the staff at Wolfson provided a place for tea
and discussion. My ideas were sifted in conversations in Oxford with extraordi­
nary colleagues such as Christopher Rowland, David Taylor, Sebastian Brock,
Geza Vermes, Larry Kreitzer, and Joan Taylor. New Road Baptist Church, Ox-
VIII Acknowledgements
ford provided a place of worship and a supportive community. I am also grateful
for continuing dialogue with fellow members of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti
Societas, including James Dunn, Cilliers Breytenbach, Sean Freyne, Jorg Frey,
David Gowler, Samuel Vollenweider, Peter Lampe, and Alan Culpepper. I appre­
ciate as well the office assistance provided by Niklaus von Wittenbach.
I wish to acknowledge and to honor a line of extraordinary teachers and men­
tors. Among these are Frank Stagg of Louisville; Ulrich Luz of Bern; Hans Weder,
Eduard Schweizer, and Jean Zumstein of Zurich; Peter Stuhlmacher, Martin
Hengel, and Jiirgen Moltmann of Tubingen.
My work has been carried out with the support of an extraordinary family.
My quest for both faith and scholarship was fired by the example and support
of my parents, Dempsey and Louise Broadhead. My sister, Janet Broadhead
Tidmore, and her husband Pat have followed with interest and care through each
stage of my work.
Finally, I am grateful beyond measure for the support and encouragement of
Loretta Reynolds, who is both colleague and spouse. I have learned much from
the questions she brings from her own interests and her own fields of study,
which are homiletics, women's studies, and pastoral care. More importantly, she
understood why this venture was so important, she has listened to my ideas, and
she has offered her support and encouragement throughout. This text is dedi­
cated to her with many thanks, with great joy, and with much love.
Edwin K. Broadhead
Berea, Kentucky
Prologue
Just outside the Victoria Market in Melbourne, Australia stands a small monu­
ment to the first British settlers. The British claim to the continent would be
based on the legal principle of terra nullius (the land of no one). Subsequent rul­
ings in the British court system attempted to extinguish all claims to native title.
The glaring contradiction, of course, is that Aboriginal peoples have inhabited
the continent for over 40,000 years and numbered, in the late 1700s, some
350,000 inhabitants. Although their origin, identity, and history cannot be pre­
cisely described, Aboriginal presence cannot be ignored. Even where no de­
scendants remain, such as in Tasmania, the oral tales and the campfires and mid­
dens bear witness to their place on the map of history.
Such is the case with the religious map of antiquity. A Christian orthodoxy
(though not hegemony) was achieved with the patronage of Constantine (313 ce)
and in the pronouncements of the Council of Nicea called by the emperor (325
ce). A similar orthodoxy was enforced upon Judaism by the codification of rab­
binic tradition in the Mishnah and by its subsequent imposition as the standard
for Judaism (2nd to 5th century ce). Both traditions, Christian and rabbinic, im­
posed their dominance upon the religious map of their own time, but also, retro­
spectively, upon the previous periods. An ideological form of terra nullius was
declared, asserting the primal status of these later norms. The trajectory sketched
out in Luke-Acts seems to move with inevitable inertia from Pentecost westward
toward Rome and the Christianization of the Roman Empire. In Judaism, the
prophet of the journey was Josephus, who privileged the Pharisaic approach and
cooperation with the Romans in the afermath of the 1st Jewish War. The develop­
ments after the fall of the Temple (70 ce) appear to lead inevitably to the consoli­
dation of rabbinic authority in later centuries. In the process of achieving domi­
nance, the Church Fathers labeled other groups as heretics; the rabbis, for the
most part, ignored their competition. Like the British colonial accounts, these
two grand narratives were written with a clear awareness that the landscape was,
in reality, filled with a wide variety of characters and groups and traditions, with
many Judaisms and many Christianities.
Our task here is to add a critical note to the monuments that define both
Christianity and Judaism - to acknowledge that the ancient landscape included
the story of Jewish followers of Jesus. As far as it is possible, this study seeks to
clarify historical markers for the presence of Jewish Christianity in various