Reading New Testament Texts within Judaism

This volume tests the “within Judaism” paradigm as a heuristic rather than a presupposition. Contributors explore how New Testament texts formed within the pluralism of Second Temple Judaism and assess their value as expressions of groups embedded in Jewish history, with attention to boundaries, external perceptions, and literary genres.

The contributors engage in a critical dialogue on the “within Judaism” trend as a heuristic perspective whose historical, exegetical, and methodological consistency calls for careful examination. By attempting
– and in some cases challenging – a reading of New Testament texts as Jewish literature, they investigate how early followers of Jesus and their textual expressions took shape within the plural world of early Judaism in its Greco-Roman environment. They evaluate the approach’s explanatory power, its limits, and what its application achieves when directed toward specific texts.
To begin with, definitional and methodological issues are addressed: how the boundaries of “Judaism” should be drawn, whether the Jewishness of individual writings must be demonstrated case by case, and how chronological, ethnic, or theological criteria contribute to classification. The contributors further explore how interethnic settings of the first century reshaped perceptions of boundaries between Jews and Gentiles, including eschatological and soteriological aspects.
They also investigate, through New Testament texts, interactions between believers in Jesus and the broader Jewish ethnos, highlighting inner-Jewish tensions, Roman and pagan perceptions, and the role of external observation in shaping emerging identities.
Literary and genre-oriented contributions examine how Gospels, letters, and the Apocalypse function as rhetorical acts of self-definition. Attention to Greco-Roman forms such as the bios underscores the need for broader interpretive frameworks, including social identity complexity theory. Contributions on worship, messianic faith, and life practices situate even polemical or innovative features within the diverse spectrum of early Judaism.

Marida Nicolaci - Carmelo Raspa - Francesco Bonanno: Introduction - Gabriele Boccaccini: 1. Reading the New Testament within Judaism. Birth, Development and Theory of a Novel Trend in Contemporary Research - Wolfgang Grünstäudl: 2. Reading "the" New Testament within Judaism. A Brief Response to Gabriele Boccaccini - Simon C. Mimouni: 3. Quel est le "Judaïsme" des Ier-IIe siècles de notre ère? Plaidoyer pour un Judaïsme sacerdotal et synagogal - Massimo Gargiulo: 4. A Response to Simon C. Mimouni - Paula Fredriksen: 5. "Israel among the Nations:" Diaspora Realities, Eschatological Hopes, and the early Jesus Movement - Carmelo Raspa: 6. A Response to Paula Fredriksen - Émile Puech: 7. L'Alliance et la Nouvelle Alliance dans les manuscrits de la mer Morte - Marida Nicolaci: 8. Forced into Supersessionist Reading? In Dialogue with Émile Puech - Maurizio Marcheselli: 9. The self-perception underlying the use of Ioudaio* in the corpus johanneum and Lucan writings - Anders Runesson: 10. Persecution Imagined and Real. Jewish Law and Jesus Followers in First-Century Synagogues - John M. G. Barclay: 11. Public Perception in the Roman World: A Critical Factor in the Distinction between Jesus-Followers and Local Jewish Communities - Richard A. Burridge: 12. The Gospels and Genre - within and without Judaism - Antonio Pitta: 13. Judaism and the Letters in the Early Christian Movement - Salvatore Panzarella: 14. Apocalypses and Christological Representations in the Book of Revelation - Ruben A. Bühner: 15. Christology and Identity. Differentiating Between Messianic Concepts and Rhetorical Intention in the Early Statements about Christ - Rafael Aguirre: 16. Eucharistic Meals and the Cultic Language of the Followers of Jesus: A Jewish Rituality? - Annalisa Guida: 17. Matters of loaves and hands. Some controversial life practices of Jesus and his followers according to the Gospel of Mark

• Edited by Marida Nicolaci
• Edited by Carmelo Raspa
• Edited by Francesco Bonanno