Negotiating Identities: Conflict, Conversion, and Consolidation in Early Judaism and Christianity (200 BCE-600 CE)

Covering the period from 200 BCE to 600 CE, this book describes important aspects of identity formation processes within early Judaism and Christianity, and shows how negotiations involving issues of ethnicity, stereotyping, purity, commensality, and institution building contributed to the forming of group identities. Over time, some of these Jewish group identities evolved into non-Jewish Christian identities, others into a rabbinic Jewish identity, while yet others remained somewhere in between. The contributors to this volume trace these developments in archaeological remains as well as in texts from the Qumran movement, the New Testament and the reception of Paul’s writings, rabbinic literature, and apocryphal and pseudepigraphical writings, such as the Book of Dreams and the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies. The long timespan covered in the volume together with the combined expertise of scholars from various fields make this book a unique contribution to research on group identity, Jewish and Christian identity formation, the Partings-of-the-ways between Judaism and Christianity, and interactions between Jews and Christians.

John J. Collins is Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale University Divinity School, USA.

Christine Hayes grew up loving stories about the creatures that curl your toes, and the legends that send a shiver down your spine. Now she loves writing about them, too. She lives in Utah with her family, her dog Chewie, and a collection of vintage finds that hopefully are not cursed.

Anders Runesson is professor of New Testament at the University of Oslo.