Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§9.1 The Historical Context
which flourished in the heart of the land of Israel up to the 60s of the first century
CE. This in turn has resulted in a renewed interest in the pseudepigrapha 1 ' and an
increasing recognition that they too have to be described as representing different
forms of Judaism. At the same time the extent of Pharisaic influence in firstcentury
Israel has been radically questioned, 12 and the sharpness of any distinction
between 'Judaism' and 'Hellenism' which had allowed a clear demarcation
between 'Palestinian Judaism' and 'Hellenistic Judaism' has been considerably
blurred. 13 Within a broader framework we could perhaps also note that the liberal
thrust of so much western scholarship, reinforced more recently by postmodern
suspicion, has progressively undermined the very idea of a 'norm'.
In consequence the last two decades of the twentieth century witnessed an
increasing tendency to emphasize the diverse character of first-century Judaism
and to speak of several 'Judaisms' (plural), leaving the question of their legitimacy
as forms of 'Judaism' unasked as being either misleading or improper. 14
Still too little explored, however, is the further or alternative question how this
quite proper modern, phenomenological description of different Judaisms relates
to the self-perception of each of these several Judaisms in their own day, not to
mention their own evaluation of the other Judaisms.
The main alternative option at this point for a historian of the period is to
speak of 'Palestinian Judaism'. It is true that the name 'Palestine' came into formal
use for the territory only in the second century CE, when, following the failure
of the second Jewish Revolt (132-135), the Roman colony of Aelia
Capitolina was reestablished, and Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina. But the
usage itself is very old and common among Greco-Roman writers. Herodotus in
the fifth century BCE already speaks of 'the Syrians of Palestine' (Hist. II. 10.3),
11. See particularly J. H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2
vols.; London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1983, 1985) = OTP; also Charlesworth, Jesus ch. 2;
H. F. D. Sparks, ed. The Apocryphal Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984).
12. Differently by Neusner, Rabbinic Traditions; also From Politics to Piety; and by
Sanders, particularly Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE-66 CE (London: SCM, 1992) ch. 18.
13. See chapter 5 n. 122; see also below n. 288.
14. E.g., S. Sandmel, The First Christian Century in Judaism and Christianity (New
York: Oxford University, 1969) ch. 2 'Palestinian Judaisms'; J. Neusner et al., eds., Judaisms
and Their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1987);
J. Neusner, Studying Classical Judaism: A Primer (Louisville: Westminster, 1991) 27-36; A. F.
Segal, The Other Judaisms of Late Antiquity (Atlanta: Scholars, 1987); J. Murphy, The Religious
World of Jesus: An Introduction to Second Temple Palestinian Judaism (Hoboken, NJ:
Ktav, 1991) 39. 'Whereas rabbinic Judaism is dominated by an identifiable perspective that
holds together many otherwise diverse elements, early Judaism appears to encompass almost
unlimited diversity and variety — indeed, it might be more appropriate to speak of early
Judaisms' (R. A. Kraft and G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters
[Atlanta: Scholars, 1986] 2).
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