Notes
Notes ﱜ Chapter 1 1 This point is made by, among others, Anthony Saldarini (1992: 26), where he provides a succint and insightful summary of how New Testament research has depicted Jewish-Christian relations in antiquity. 2 The reasons for this change are associated with the effect the Holocaust had on New Testament scholars’ investigation into how anti-Jewish teachings in the church might have contributed to the Nazi attempt to destroy European Jewry. See the Appendix for a fuller discussion of these issues. 3 This is an important part of Walter Bauer’s provocative thesis in Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (1971). Discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of this thesis as it pertains to the understanding of Jewish-Christian relations in the early centuries is found in the Appendix. 4 I use the term “Gentile Christian” to denote Christians of Gentile, non-Jewish , or pagan origin. The word “pagan” bears no derogatory meaning in this study, but is employed in the standard manner adopted by scholars of the ancient world to distinguish Jews and early Christians from others in the Greco-Roman world. 5 For convenience, throughout this study I use the term “Jew” to refer to someone of Jewish origin who does not identify Jesus of Nazareth as one or more of the following: the Messiah, God’s Son, or a divine being. The term “Jewish Christian” denotes someone of Jewish birth who does hold one or more of these beliefs. 6 In his earlier publication (1987: 418), Cohen argues that the passage’s reference to an “equivocal” element was a reference to the group of judaizers present in the Syrian cities; in a later work he argues that there are instead two “liminal” groups: the “judaizers” and the “ambiguous element” (1999: 184). 7 This point has been emphasized by Gaston, who notes that while the verb “to judaize” sometimes was used to refer to the forced conversion of Gentiles to Judaism (Esth. 8:17 lxx; Josephus, War 2.454), it more properly means “to live as a Jew, in accordance with Jewish customs” (Gaston 1986: 35). In other words, it describes the phenomenon of Gentiles’ observing various components of the Mosaic law, such as keeping the Sabbath or certain food laws, without converting fully to Judaism (Gal. 2:14; Josephus, War 2.463; Plutarch, Cic. 7.6; Acts of Pilate 2.1; and Council of Laeodicea, Canon 29; also Gaston 1986: 35 and Cohen 1989: 13–33). According to Cohen, “Aside from a small number of passages in which ioudaizein might mean to give political support to the Jews…, the verb always means to adopt the customs and manners of the Jews…, it means to abstain from pork, to refrain from work on the Sabbath , or to attend synagogue. What makes Jews distinctive, and consequently 153 what makes ‘judaizers’ distinctive, is the observance of the ancestral laws of the Jews” (1993: 32). 8 Some of the “anti-Jewish” rhetoric in the documents discussed in this study addresses Gentile Christians, not Jews. I agree with Taylor that this rhetoric was intra muros but for different reasons. 9 My initial goal was to survey early Christian documents dating up to 200 ce, however no extant documents relevant to the issue were found between the period of 160 to 200 ce. For maps of Syria and Asia Minor, see pages xi and xii respectively. 10 In addition, interpretations ought not to be based on ambiguous words or phrases, nor, likewise, on a suspiciously distorted phrase (Barclay 1987: 84). ﱜ Chapter 2 1 Flavius Josephus emphasizes the antiquity of the Jews throughout his writing, and claims, e.g., in Against Apion, that Moses is the oldest of all legislators in the world (2.154–56). Even adversaries of the Jews were willing to acknowledge the antiquity of their existence: Tacitus, for one, set the origin of the Jews in Greek pre-history (Feldman 1993: 184). 2 Segal argues that the statement attests “to the success that Judaism had in proselytism ” (Segal 1990: 86). Tacitus’ remark says nothing, however, about whether the Jews sought the converts or whether non-Jews came of their own initiative. Receiving converts is one thing; actively seeking them is another. 3 Stern (1976: 323) states that Horace’s words imply “strong Jewish missionary activity in Rome.” But there is nothing here about Jews compelling Gentiles to become Jewish. Cicero from the previous generation attests to how the Jews would use mass intimidation to get their way when...
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