Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FROM THE GOSPELS TO JESUS §9.1
terms of 'normative Judaism', 3 the assumption being that the Judaism represented
in rabbinic tradition (Mishnah, Talmuds, etc.) already served as the norm determinative
for Judaism in the first century. 4 Scholars were, of course, aware of Jewish
pseudepigrapha, several of which date from the second century BCE or earlier, 5
and of Philo, the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher who died about 50 CE. 6 But
these writings were preserved for posterity by Christians and not by the rabbis and
so could the more easily be regarded as variations on or deviations from a Pharisaic/rabbinic
norm. 7 There was also some reflection on the possibility that diaspora
Judaism was a different branch of the species from Palestinian Judaism, perhaps
thus providing a solution to the conundrum of what Judaism it was that the
Christian Paul set his face so firmly against. 8 But the thesis simply reinforced the
sense that diaspora Judaism was a divergent (and inferior) form of Judaism,
whose degree of divergence itself provided a large part of the explanation of why
Pauline Christianity and normative/Palestinian Judaism went their separate ways.
In the mid-twentieth century, however, the assumption of a Pharisaic/rabbinic
normative Judaism recognized as such in first-century Israel was shattered
by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Although the delay in publishing many
of the more obviously sectarian scrolls diminished their initial impact, they
clearly include Jewish documents which predate Christianity and could never
have been affected by Christianity. 9 More to the point, their self-asserted sectarian
character is evident, 10 and can hardly fail to be attributed to a kind of Judaism
3. The term is particularly linked to G. F. Moore, Judaism in the First Three Centuries of
the Christian Era (3 vols.; Cambridge: Harvard University, 1927-30); see, e.g., Sanders, Paul
and Palestinian Judaism 34 and n. 11.
4. The assumption prevails, e.g., in J. Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus (London:
SCM, 1969), and in S. Safrai and M. Stern, eds., The Jewish People in the First Century
(CRINT I; Assen: van Gorcum, 2 vols. 1974, 1976). The scholarship of the period is typified by
reliance on the great collection of rabbinic material by H. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar
zum Neuen Testament (Munich: Beck, 4 vols., 1926-28).
5. Particularly R. H. Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament
(Oxford: Clarendon, 2 vols. 1913); W. Bousset and H. Gressmann, Die Religion des
Judentums im späthellenistischen Zeitalter (HNT 21; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1925, 4 1966).
6. See P. Borgen, 'Philo of Alexandria' in M. E. Stone, ed., Jewish Writings of the Second
Temple Period (CRINT II.2; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1984) 233-82; also 'Philo of Alexandria',
ABD 5.333-42; J. Morris, in Schürer, History III.2, 809-89.
7. See, e.g., the disagreement among Bousset, Gressmann, and Moore on this question
(discussed by Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism 34 and 55-56).
8. Particularly C. G. Montefiore, Judaism and St. Paul (London: Goschen, 1914), and
H. J. Schoeps, Paul: The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of Jewish Religious History (London:
Lutterworth, 1961).
9. See below n. 78.
10. See particularly H. Stegemann, The Library of Qumran (1993; ET Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1998) 104-18.
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