Neither Jew nor Greek: A Contested Identity

by James D.G. Dunn

The third and final installment of James Dunn's magisterial history of Christian origins through 190 C.E.,  Neither Jew nor A Contested Identity  covers the period after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. through the second century, when the still-new Jesus movement firmed up its distinctive identity markers and the structures on which it would establish its growing appeal in the following decades and centuries.
 
Dunn examines in depth the major factors that shaped first-generation Christianity and beyond, exploring the parting of the ways between Christianity and Judaism, the Hellenization of Christianity, and responses to Gnosticism. He mines all the first- and second-century sources, including the New Testament Gospels, New Testament apocrypha, and such church fathers as Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, showing how the Jesus tradition and the figures of James, Paul, Peter, and John were still esteemed influences but were also the subject of intense controversy as the early church wrestled with its evolving identity.
 
Comprehensively covering an important, complex era in Christianity that is often overlooked, this volume is a landmark contribution to the field.

Genres: Christianity, History, New Testament, Church, Church History, Biblical Studies

816 pages, Hardcover

First published December 15, 2015

About the author

James D. G. ("Jimmy") Dunn (born 1939) was for many years the Lightfoot Professor of Divinity in the Department of Theology at the University of Durham. Since his retirement he has been made Emeritus Lightfoot Professor. He is a leading British New Testament scholar, broadly in the Protestant tradition. Dunn is especially associated with the New Perspective on Paul, along with N. T. (Tom) Wright and E. P. Sanders. He is credited with coining this phrase during his 1982 Manson Memorial Lecture.

Dunn has an MA and BD from the University of Glasgow and a PhD and DD from the University of Cambridge. For 2002, Dunn was the President of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, the leading international body for New Testament study. Only three other British scholars had been made President in the preceding 25 years.

In 2005 a festschrift was published dedicated to Dunn, comprising articles by 27 New Testament scholars, examining early Christian communities and their beliefs about the Holy Spirit. (edited by Graham N. Stanton, Bruce W. Longenecker & Stephen Barton (2004). The Holy Spirit and Christian origins: essays in honor of James D. G. Dunn. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. ISBN 0-8028-2822-1.)

Dunn has taken up E. P. Sanders' project of redefining Palestinian Judaism in order to correct the Christian view of Judaism as a religion of works-righteousness. One of the most important differences to Sanders is that Dunn perceives a fundamental coherence and consistency to Paul's thought. He furthermore criticizes Sanders' understanding of the term "justification", arguing that Sanders' understanding suffers from an "individualizing exegesis".

Reviews

[Rodney Harvill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been studying Revelation, and some of my commentaries have noted a rising hostility between Jews and Christians following the catastrophe of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. So, I thought that this book might help me to better understand the history of those dynamics. While the book obliquely addresses this issue in discussing the origins of rabbinic Judaism at Yavneh following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., it covers a lot more ground that that:

• While acknowledging that rabbinic Judaism was without question the heir of the Pharisees, he also points out the shear diversity within Second Temple Judaism (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, various forms of Hellenistic Judaism within the Diaspora) and makes a case that Christianity, originally viewed as a sect of the Jews, was a rightful heir to that diversity.
• Using various primary sources, Dr. Dunn describes the diversity of Jewish sects within Christianity. Sects such as the Ebionites rejected the divinity of Christ while holding to a strong view of the Torah. Conversely, there were other Jewish Christians who held to a high Christology while still maintaining a Jewish identity by attending synagogue services and holding to other Jewish traditions. Christian bishops hated this and ultimately rooted such practices out of the church. Like Dr. Dunn, I consider this to have been a grave mistake that probably contributed to deep-seated hostility between the church and the Jews. Interestingly enough, such a version of Christianity has been restored in recent decades with the Messianic Christian movement, a prominent member of which is Rabbi Jonathan Cahn.
• Just as Messianic Christians have their early church fore-runner, so do charismatic movements such as the Pentecostals in the Montanist movement that started in Phrygia and may well have been inspired by the book of Revelation. Ultimately, the Montanists were deemed heretical on account of their use of prophets and prophetesses to add to the first-century apostolic scriptures.
• Dr. Dunn also spends a lot of time in Gnostic texts such as those found at Nag Hammadi. One point he effectively makes is that Gnosticism wasn’t Christianity. Sects such as Messianic Christianity and Montanism were outgrowths of Christianity, but Gnosticism had the feel of an outside teaching grafted onto Christian doctrines that just happened to have some similarity to it.

As noted above, Dr. Dunn spends a lot of time in early Christian texts, not just the New Testament, which also gets a lot of attention as a primary source. This really impressed me and motivates me to read more of the apostolic and early church fathers (I had previously read the Didache and the Martyrdom of Polycarp.) to better understand that time period of the church as well as its apologetics methods in a hostile environment. Current trends of militant secularism in our own society increasingly suggest parallels to the second century church.

[Toby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dunn's epic three volume series charting the development of the Jesus Tradition in the life of the early church finishes with the writing of the Gospels and the influence of the written and oral traditions into the second century. It is comprehensive and gives due consideration not simply to the four canonical gospels but also to Thomas and the other apocryphal and gnostic texts. Dunn proves quite convincingly that the four canonical gospels were very quickly established as the most reliable texts for teaching the life and death of Jesus and were in themselves groundbreaking.

This volume felt a little bit more like reading a reference book as Dunn's thoroughness means quite a significant amount of cross-reference gospel passages with other texts. Even so, the three volumes will surely remain the most significant exploration of the growth of Jesus Tradition for many years to come.

[Horacio Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un muy buen libro, con el cual se finaliza la una obra enciclopédica de El Cristianismo en sus Comienzos y nos explica como una secta judía se expandió durante los siglos I y Ii, antes de ser adoptada por Constantino con los resultados conocidos.

[Nick Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

extremely good though not at good as Beginning in Jerusalem
odd structure
can't really see why Dunn puts "the Jesus tradition" on same level as Paul, Peter, James, etc
still - super series