It is a remarkable fact that the writings of Philo, the Jew from Alexandria, were preserved because they were taken up in the Christian tradition. But the story of how this process of reception and appropriation took place has never been systematically research. In this book the author first examines how Philo's works are related to the New Testament and the earliest Chritian writing, and then how they were used by Greek and Latin church fathers up to 400 c.e., with special attention to the contributions of Clement, Origen, Didymus, Eusebius, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, and Augustine. Philo in Early Christian Literature is a valuable guide to the state of scholarly research on a subject that has thus far been investigated in a rather piecemeal fashion.

This volume demonstrates that we should understand nascent Christianity and early Judaism as sharing to a large extent the same traditions. It throws fresh light on the Jewishness of the Two Ways teaching in Didache 1-6 as it presents a cautious reconstruction of the Jewish prototype of the Two Ways and traces the Jewish life situation in which the instruction could flourish. In the field of liturgical studies, a significant contribution is made to the discussion of Didache 7-10. It improves our understanding of the Jewish provenance and historical development of Baptism and Eucharist. The book also presents an intriguing look into the ministry of itinerant apostles and prophets (Didache 11-15) considering the larger environment of Jewish religious and cultural history.

This volume contains five chapters which investigate the early Christian appropriations of Jewish apocalyptic material. An introductory chapter surveys ancient perceptions of the apocalyses as well as their function, authority, and survival in the early Church. The second chapter focuses on a specific tradition by exploring the status of the Enoch-literature, the use of the fallen-angel motif, and the identification of Enoch as an eschatological witness. Christian transmission of Jewish texts, a topic whose significance is more and more being recognized, is the subject of chapter three which analyzes what happend to 4,5 and 6 Ezra as they were copied and edited in Christian circles. Chapter four studies the early Christian appropriation and reinterpretation of Jewish apocalyptic chronologies, especially Daniel's vision of 70 weeks. The fifth and last chapter is devoted to the use and influence of Jewish apocalyptic traditions among Christian sectarian groups in Asia Minor and particularly in Egypt. Taken together these chapters written by four authors, offer illuminating examples of how Jewish apocalyptic texts and traditions fared in early Christianity. Editors James C. VanderKam is lecturing at the University of Notre Dame; William Adler is lecturer at North Carolina State University. Series: Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum Section 1 - The Jewish people in the first century Historial geography, political history, social, cultural and religious life and institutions Edited by S. Safrai and M. Stern in cooperation with D. Flusser and W.C. van Unnik Section 2 - The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud Section 3 - Jewish Traditions in Early Christian Literature

While interest in Paul's relationship to Judaism has been growing recently, this study adds an important aspect by comparing Paul’s practical instruction with the ancient halakha or Jewish traditional law. First Corinthians is found to be a source of prime importance, and surprisingly, halakha appears to be basic to Paul's instruction for non-Jewish Christians. The book includes thorough discussion of hermeneutic and methodological implications, always viewed in relation to the history of Pauline and Judaic study. Attention is also being paid to the setting within Hellenistic culture. Finally, conclusions are drawn about the texture of Paul's thought and these are applied to two ‘theological’ passages decisive for his place in Judaism. Historical and theological implications are vast, both regarding Paul's relationship to Judaism, his attitude towards Jesus and his Apostles, and the meaning of his teaching concerning justification and the Law.

This work concerns the early Christians' self-definitions and self-representations in the context of pagan-Christian conflict, reflected in the literatures from the mid-second to the early third centuries (ca. 150 - 225 CE).

Series: Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum Section 1 - The Jewish people in the first century Historical geography, political history, social, cultural and religious life and institutions Edited by S. Safrai and M. Stern in cooperation with D. Flusser and W.C. van Unnik Section 2 - The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud Section 3 - Jewish Traditions in Early Christian Literature

This long-awaited companion volume to The Literature of the Sages, First Part (Fortress Press, 1987) brings to completion Section II of the renowned Compendia series. The Literature of the Sages, Second Part, explores the literary creation of thousands of ancient Jewish teachers, the often- anonymous Sages of late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Essays by premier scholars provide a careful and succinct analysis of the content and character of various documents, their textual and literary forms, with particular attention to the ongoing discovery and publication of new textual material. Incorporating groundbreaking developments in research, these essays give a comprehensive presentation published here for the first time. This volume will prove an important reference work for all students of ancient Judaism, the origins of Jewish tradition, and the Jewish background of Christianity. The literary creation of the ancient Jewish teachers or Sages – also called rabbinic literature – consists of the teachings of thousands of Sages, many of them anonymous. For a long period, their teachings existed orally, which implied a great deal of flexibility in arrangement and form. Only gradually, as parts of this amorphous oral tradition became fixed, was the literature written down, a process that began in the third century C.E. and continued into the Middle Ages. Thus the documents of rabbinic literature are the result of a remarkably long and complex process of creation and editing. This long-awaited companion volume to 'The Literature of the Sages, First Part' (1987) gives a careful and succinct analysis both of the content and specific nature of the various documents, and of their textual and literary forms, paying special attention to the continuing discovery and publication of new textual material. Incorporating ground-breaking developments in research, these essays give a comprehensive presentation published here for the first time. 'The Literature of the Sages, Second Part' is an important reference work for all students of ancient Judaism, as well as for those interested in the origins of Jewish tradition and the Jewish background of Christianity.

The question of apocalyptic influence on Jesus and early Christianity is again strongly contested. The issues connected with this question include terminology, genre, historical reconstruction, sectarian self-definition, and many others. This book provides a fresh assessment of the nature and significance of early Christian appropriation of Jewish apocalyptic material.

Scholarly interest in intertextuality remains as keen as ever. Armed with new questions, interpreters seek to understand better the function of older scripture in later scripture. The essays assembled in the present collection address these questions. These essays treat pre-Christian texts, as well as Christian texts, that make use of older sacred tradition. They analyze the respective uses of scripture in diverse Jewish and Christian traditions. Some of these studies are concerned with discreet bodies of writings, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, while others are concerned with versions of scriptures, such as the Hebrew or Old Greek, and text critical issues. Other studies are concerned with how scripture is interpreted as part of apocalyptic and eschatology. Early Christian Literature and Intertextuality includes essays that explore the use of Old Testament scripture in the Gospels and Acts. Other studies examine the apostle Paul's interpretation of scripture in his letters, while other studies look at non-Pauline writings and their utilization of scripture. Some of the studies in this collection show how older scripture clarifies important points of teaching or resolves social conflict. Law, conversion, anthropology, paradise, and Messianism are among the themes treated in these studies, themes rooted in important ways in older sacred tradition. The collection concludes with studies on two important Christian interpreters, Syriac-speaking Aphrahat in the east and Latin-speaking Augustine in the west. [Part of the LNTS sub series Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity (SSEJC), volume 14]

How did second-century Christians vie with each other in seeking to produce an authoritative discourse of Christian identity? In this innovative book, Denise Buell argues that many early Christians deployed the metaphors of procreation and kinship in the struggle over claims to represent the truth of Christian interpretation, practice, and doctrine. In particular, she examines the intriguing works of the influential theologian Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-210 c.e.), for whom cultural assumptions about procreation and kinship played an important role in defining which Christians have the proper authority to teach, and which kinds of knowledge are authentic. Buell argues that metaphors of procreation and kinship can serve to make power differentials appear natural. She shows that early Christian authors recognized this and often turned to such metaphors to mark their own positions as legitimate and marginalize others as false. Attention to the functions of this language offers a way out of the trap of reconstructing the development of early Christianity along the axes of "heresy" and "orthodoxy," while not denying that early Christians employed this binary. Ultimately, Buell argues, strategic use of kinship language encouraged conformity over diversity and had a long lasting effect both on Christian thought and on the historiography of early Christianity. Aperceptive and closely argued contribution to early Christian studies, Making Christians also branches out to the areas of kinship studies and the social construction of gender.