Journal: Bulletin for Biblical Research
Volume: BBR 08:1 (NA 1998)
Article: Judaism and Christianity in the Beginning: Time for a Category-Reformation?
Author: Jacob Neusner

---

BBR 8:1 (1998) p. 229

Judaism and Christianity in the
Beginning: Time for a
Category-Reformation?

Jacob Neusner

University Of South Florida And Bard College

Schismatics, Sectarians, Dissidents, Deviants: The First One Hundred Years of Jewish-Christian Relations. By Jack T. Sanders. Valley Forge: Trinity, 1993. ISBN 1-56338-065-X.

Related Strangers: Jews and Christians, 70-170 C.E. By Stephen G. Wilson. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995. ISBN 0 8006-2950-7.

Covering the same subject in the same way, these two books, the one incompetent, the other exemplary, present a striking contrast but also share a massive flaw. Since, as I shall explain, we cannot attribute the flaw to individual idiosyncrasy, we must assign its origin to a common source. Both books turn out to ask questions that can be imagined, then investigated, only if we adopt premises and presuppositions that, in fact, contradict the character of the evidence. Neither book can have been written if the author did not invoke categories that, in fact, do not apply, in the investigation of questions the sources do not answer, for a purpose the ancient authorities would not have comprehended to begin with.

Asking about relationships between Jews and Christians, each author shows what he can do. Wilson writes elegantly and lucidly, presenting a clear and compelling account; Sanders writes like a barbarian, loses his way constantly, and ends up casting his never-to-be-tallied ballot in every contested opinion. The one is controlled, civil, interesting, well-conceived, and nicely crafted. The other wanders purposelessly hither and yon, shamelessly declaring at the end that this entire piece of academic busy-work served as an utter self-indulgence. So Sanders confesses, “It has been a long road from the Apostolic Conference to social evolution… . I hope that I have left a reasonably legible map and that others can now take the journey with greater ease. But if that should prove not to be the case, probably such following is not the most important thing. I had loads of fun finding the way. Why else do we undertake historical investigations?”

BBR 8:1 (1998) p. 230

The answer is, to learn something important—and that must mean more than the author’s casual, space-filling opinions about everything and its opposite.

Let us begin with the bad book. Sanders shows his hand at the end: “This study began with a historical problem that I had: Why did the author of Luke–Acts portray Jews generally in such a negative way? … I concluded that the answer must lie in the author’s own environment, in some aspect of Jewish-Christian relations in his own place and time… . Other scholars have tended to av...

visitor : : uid: ()