Against the scholarly consensus that assumes early Christians were involved in a rivalry for converts with contemporary Jews, this book shows that the target of patristic writers was rather a symbolic Judaism, and their aim was to define theologically the young church's identity. In identifying and categorizing the hypotheses put forward by modern scholars to defend their view of a Jewish-Christian "conflict", this book demonstrates how current theories have generated faulty notions about the perceptions and motivations of ancient Christians and Jews. Beyond its relevance to students of the early church, this book addresses the broader question of Christian responsibility for modern anti-Semitism. It shows how the focus on a supposedly social rivalry, obscures the depth and disquieting nature of the connections between early anti-Judaism and Christian identity.

Against the scholarly consensus that assumes early Christians were involved in a rivalry for converts with contemporary Jews, this book shows that the target of patristic writers was rather a symbolic Judaism, and their aim was to define theologically the young church's identity. In identifying and categorizing the hypotheses put forward by modern scholars to defend their view of a Jewish-Christian 'conflict', this book demonstrates how current theories have generated faulty notions about the perceptions and motivations of ancient Christians and Jews. Beyond its relevance to students of the early church, this book addresses the broader question of Christian responsibility for modern anti-Semitism. It shows how the focus on a supposedly social rivalry, obscures the depth and disquieting nature of the connections between early anti-Judaism and Christian identity.

Against the scholarly consensus that assumes early Christians were involved in a rivalry for converts with contemporary Jews, this book shows that the target of patristic writers was rather a symbolic Judaism, and their aim was to define theologically the young church's identity. In identifying and categorizing the hypotheses put forward by modern scholars to defend their view of a Jewish-Christian 'conflict', this book demonstrates how current theories have generated faulty notions about the perceptions and motivations of ancient Christians and Jews. Beyond its relevance to students of the early church, this book addresses the broader question of Christian responsibility for modern anti-Semitism. It shows how the focus on a supposedly social rivalry, obscures the depth and disquieting nature of the connections between early anti-Judaism and Christian identity.

The book, which consists of some previously published and unpublished essays, examines a variety of issues relevant to the study of ancient Judaism and Christianity and their interaction, including polemic, proselytism, biblical interpretation, messianism, the phenomenon normally described as Jewish Christianity, and the fate of the Jewish community after the Bar Kokhba revolt, a period of considerable importance for the emergence not only of Judaism but also of Christianity. The volume, typically for a collection of essays, does not lay out a particular thesis. If anything binds the collection together, it is the author's attempt to set out the major fault lines in current debate about these disputed subjects, and in the process to reveal their complex and entangled character.

Originally an ascribed identity that cast non-Jewish Christ-believers as an ethnic other, “gentile” soon evolved into a much more complex aspect of early Christian identity. Gentile Christian Identity from Cornelius to Constantine is a full historical account of this trajectory, showing how, in the context of “the parting of the ways,” the early church increasingly identified itself as a distinctly gentile and anti-Judaic entity, even as it also crafted itself as an alternative to the cosmopolitan project of the Roman Empire. This process of identity construction shaped Christianity’s legacy, paradoxically establishing it as both a counter-empire and a mimicker of Rome’s imperial ideology. Drawing on social identity theory and ethnography, Terence Donaldson offers an analysis of gentile Christianity that is thorough and highly relevant to today’s discourses surrounding identity, ethnicity, and Christian-Jewish relations. As Donaldson shows, a full understanding of the term “gentile” is key to understanding the modern Western world and the church as we know it.

Current scholarship in the study of ancient Christianity is now available to nonspecialists through this collection of essays on anti-Judaism in the New Testament and in New Testament interpretation. While academic writing can be obscure and popular writing can be uncritical, this group of experts has striven to write as simply and clearly as possible on topics that have been hotly contested. The essays are arranged around the historical figures and canonical texts that matter most to Christian communities and whose interpretation has fed the negative characterizations of Jews and Judaism. A select annotated bibliography also gives suggestions for further reading. This book should be an excellent resource for academic courses as well as adult study groups.

A comprehensive treatment of the early Christian approaches to the Temple and its role in shaping Jewish and Christian identity The first scholarly work to trace the Temple throughout the entire New Testament, this study examines Jewish and Christian attitudes toward the Temple in the first century and provides both Jews and Christians with a better understanding of their respective faiths and how they grow out of this ancient institution. The centrality of the Temple in New Testament writing reveals the authors’ negotiations with the institutional and symbolic center of Judaism as they worked to form their own religion.