Negotiating Identities

Relying on archaeological remains and ancient sources, this book describes important 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 formation of group identities.

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.

Introduction: Exploring the Intersection Between Judaism and Christianity in their Formative Phases

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

1. Setting the Stage: The Variety of Judaism and the Origin of Christianity

John J. Collins

Part I. Polemics and Sectarian Identities (2nd Century BCE – 1st Century CE)

2. Competition rather than Conflict: Identity Discourse in the Qumran Rule Scrolls

Jutta Jokiranta

3. Meals, Identity, and Purity in the Qumran Movement

Cecilia Wassén

4. Was Gentile Reclamation an Apocalyptic Apologetic? Ethnic Identities in the Book of Dreams as Precedent for Ethnic Reasoning in the Early Jesus Movement

Genevive Dibley

5. Slip-Slidin’ Away: Rethinking the ‘Parting of the Ways’

Adele Reinhartz

6. Where Do We Go from Here? Polemics and Sectarian Identities

Adela Yarbro Collins

Part II. Intra-Jewish Interaction and the Role of Non-Jews Within the Jesus Movement (2nd Century BCE – 1st Century CE)

7. Gentile Alterity and Ethnic Solidarity: The Role of Group Categorization in Understanding Mark as Jewish Literature

John Van Maaren

8. Gentile Sinners: A Brief History of an Ancient Stereotype

Matthew V. Novenson

9. Hypodescent in Two Ancient Jewish Writers: Jubilees and Paul on Mixed Marriages

Matthew Thiessen

10. Circumcision in Early Christian Sources: Identifying Difference After Paul

Karin Neutel

11. Where Do We Go from Here? Intra-Jewish Interaction and the Role of Non-Jews Within the Jesus Movement

Mark D. Nanos

Part III. Conflict and Co-Existence in Institutional Contexts: Seeking a Place of One’s Own (1st – 6th Centuries CE)

12. Space and Ritual in the Ancient Synagogue and Early Church in the Levant

Rina Talgam

13. Jewish Christ-Followers in Capernaum before the 4th Century? Reconsidering the Texts and Archaeology

Wally V. Cirafesi

14. Christ Assemblies within a Jewish Context: Reconstructing a Social Setting for the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies

Karin Hedner Zetterholm

15. Beyond the Parting of the Ways: Institutional Contexts as Matrices for the Formation of Judaism and Christianity

Anders Runesson

16. Where Do We Go from Here? Conflict and Co-existence in Institutional Contexts

Paula Fredriksen

Part IV. Ritual Purity and Rabbinic Ideas of the Christian Other: Generating and Consolidating Difference (1st –7th Centuries CE)

17. Along Ethnic Lines: The Case for Stepped Pools and Chalk Vessels as Markers of Jewish Purity Observance

Yonatan Adler

18. Scriptural Hermeneutics and Purity Laws in the Clementine Homilies: Mainstream or Marginal?

Holger Zellentin

19. Nazarenes [נוצרים] in Rabbinic Sources: What Does a Study of the Term Reveal about Rabbinic Attitudes to Christians?

Michal Bar-Asher Siegal

20. “It is Better to Cleave to Esau”: Rabbinic Perceptions of Esau as the “Other Within”

Moshe Lavee

21. Where Do We Go from Here? Ritual Purity and Rabbinic Ideas of the Christian Other

Samuel Byrskog

Concluding Discussion and Evaluation: Negotiating Identities

Christine Hayes