Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§9.4 The Historical Context
the insiders' self-understanding — 'Israel'. Are only those 'Israel' who have remained
true to the covenant, as understood by the group in focus, or will God restore
the wholeness of disobedient and exiled Israel in the end (in eschatological
fulfilment of the pattern in Deut. 30)? We see the ambivalence, for example, in
CD 3.12-4.12, where 'Israel' appears on both sides of the equation — God's covenant
with Israel, Israel has strayed, the 'sure house in Israel', 'the converts of Israel'.
Again in the tension in Jubilees between 15.34 and 22.23-30; or in the
Psalms of Solomon between the sustained condemnation of Jewish 'sinners' and
the final hope for Israel in 17.44-45 and 18.5. 136 Worth noting already is the
same tension in Paul between the affirmation that 'not all who are from Israel are
Israel' and the assurance that 'all Israel will be saved' (Rom. 9.6; 11.26). Nor
should we forget that the debate on 'Who is a Jew?' is still with us, not least as a
political question in the state of Israel. 137 Perhaps the imagery of 'focus' is helpful
here in that so much of our literature operates with a 'close-up focus' for most
of the time, and only occasionally with a iong-range focus', and too little attention
is given to the inconsistencies in detail which result from changing ('zooming')
from one to the other.
What, we might ask alternatively, was the function of such abusive language?
To condemn fellow Jews irretrievably? Or was it simply the language of
self-legitimation, to confirm themselves in the Tightness of their own beliefs/
practices and in the crucial importance of these beliefs/practices? Or language of
exhortation and evangelism, all the more condemnatory and fearful in order to
frighten others into accepting their own beliefs and halakhoth? Here we may see
the consequence of all sectarianism, or, alternatively expressed, the tendency to
fundamentalism. The very affirmation of the fundamental importance of some
key element of belief and practice carries with it the corollary that those who dispute
or play down that key element are thereby damned. It is quite literally the
curse of such incipient fundamentalism that it cannot recognize the legitimacy of
alternative interpretations without denying its own. In this case, first-century Judaism
is simply typical of the tensions between the ideals of 'the pure church'
and comprehensiveness which have afflicted all religions and ideologies at one
time or another. 138
Here then is a tension constantly distorting the coherence of any descrip-
136. See further the sensitive discussion of Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism 240-
57; also 361, 367-74, 378 (Jubilees) and 398-406, 408 (Psalms of Solomon).
137. Cf. particularly L. H. Schiffman, Who Was a Jew? Rabbinic andHalakhic Perspectives
on the Jewish-Christian Schism (Hoboken: Ktav, 1985).
138. Moore perceptively observed that 'In all sects, and in every ecclesiola in ecclesia, it
is the peculiarities in doctrine, observance, or piety, that are uppermost in the minds of the
members; what they have in common with the great body is no doubt taken for granted, but, so
to speak, lies in the sectarian subconsciousness' (Judaism 2.161). See also n. 56 above.
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