The Partings of the Ways: Between Christianity and Judaism and Their Significance for the Character of Christianity

by James D. G. Dunn

Publisher:

SCM Press

, 2006

Overview

The Parting of the Ways is James D. G. Dunn’s classic exploration of the important questions that surround the emergence of Christian distinctiveness and the pulling apart of Christianity and Judaism in the first century AD. It begins by surveying questions asked since the time of F. C. Baur in the nineteenth century. The author then presents the four pillars of Judaism: monotheism, election and land, Torah, and Temple. He examines various issues which arose with the emergence of Jesus: Jesus and the temple; the Stephen affair; temple and cult in earliest Christianity; Jesus, Israel and the law; “the end of the law”; and Jesus’ teaching on God. The theme of “one God, one Lord”—and the controversy between Jews and Christians over the unity of God—lead to a concluding chapter on the parting of the ways. This second edition includes an extensive new preface that takes up the developments in scholarship that have taken place since the first edition in 1991. It addresses questions about the fragmented nature of the partings, the timing of significant events—in particular the early and latter phases of the partings—as well as questions about the author’s own theological agenda. This new edition also includes discussion of the importance for Jews and Christians alike to understand better where both religions came from and how the identity of each religion took shape. Also included is a new appendix in identity, exploring the mutual relationship between the two religions and asking if one religion can ever fully understand itself without understanding this mutuality.

Contents

Top Highlights

“Strictly speaking, then, for the time of Jesus there was no such thing as a non-Hellenistic Judaism.” (Page 13)

“Judaism and Christianity were not separate entities until very late in late antiquity’.^{49” (Page xxii)}

“Finally, of course, the Temple was most significant of all as a religious centre” (Page 44)

“It was not the law or law as a principle which Jesus called in question. It was the law understood in a factional or sectarian way—interpreted in narrowing terms so that those who could not accept, or who would not conform, or who challenged that interpretation, were ipso facto categorized as ‘sinners’, even though they were Jews themselves and willing or indeed eager to live within the covenant as they understood it.” (Page 149)

“In the light of these findings, Gal. 3:13 also begins to make clearer sense. Verse 13 does not stand alone, but continues with a purpose clause: Jesus’ being cursed on the cross had the objective of extending the blessing of Abraham to the Gentiles ‘in Christ’ (3:14).” (Page 162)

Product Details

• Title: The Partings of the Ways: Between Christianity and Judaism and Their Significance for the Character of Christianity
• Author: James D. G. Dunn
• Edition: Second Edition
• Publisher: SCM Press
• Print Publication Date: 2006
• Logos Release Date: 2015
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Jesus Christ › History of doctrines--Early church, ca. 30-600; Judaism › History of doctrines; Bible. N.T. Acts › Criticism, interpretation, etc
• ISBNs: 0334029996, 9780334029901, 9780334029991
• Resource ID: LLS:SCMPARTINGSWAYS
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T02:53:09Z

About James D. G. Dunn

James D. G. Dunn (1939–) is emeritus Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham and is a leading British New Testament scholar. Dunn is a significant proponent of the New Perspective on Paul, and coined the term in a 1982 lecture. He received a PhD and DD from the University of Cambridge, and a MA and BD from the University of Glasgow. In 2002 he became only the third British scholar to be made the president of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas.

His recent works include Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? The New Testament Evidence, A New Perspective on Jesus: What the Quest for the Historical Jesus Missed, the volumes Romans 1–8 and Romans 9–16 of the Word Biblical Commentary, and The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon in The New International Greek Testament Commentary (12 vols.).