How New is the New Testament? First-Century Judaism and the Emergence of Christianity
Overview
What is so new about the New Testament? In this volume, Donald Hagner tackles the issue of how distinct early Christianity was from the first-century Judaism from which it emerged. Hagner counters the current and growing trend in New Testament scholarship of playing down any idea of newness in the New Testament and of viewing the New Testament and Christianity as representing a form of sectarian Judaism. He surveys newness in the entire New Testament canon, examining the evidence for points of continuity and discontinuity between formative Judaism and early Christianity. Hagner's accessible analysis of the New Testament text shows that despite Christianity's thorough Jewishness, from the beginning dramatic newness was an essential aspect of this early literature. How New Is the New Testament? will appeal to professors, students, and scholars of the New Testament and early Christianity.
Key Features
- Examines complicated issues in New Testament theology
- Presents a thoughtful analysis of the question of continuity and discontinuity between Judaism and the early Church
- Analyzes ancient sources relative to the New Testament canon
Contents
- The Question of Continuity and Discontinuity
- The Gospels of Mark and Matthew
- The Gospel of Luke
- The Acts of the Apostles
- The Gospel of John and the Johannine Letters
- The Pauline Corpus
- Hebrews and the Catholic Letters
- The Apocalypse
- Newness in the New Testament: Continuity and Discontinuity
Top Highlights
“Judaism was a religion of grace that depended on God’s sovereign election of Israel.” (Page 2)
“Here we find practically all of the emphases made by the ‘Paul-within-Judaism’ movement: there was no ‘Christianity’ when the NT was written; believers in Jesus constituted a sect within Judaism; Paul continued to obey Torah; Paul did not preach justification by faith; an important key to understanding Paul’s Letters is that he wrote them not to Jews but to Gentiles; Paul’s negative statements about the law therefore apply only to Gentiles; Paul was called rather than converted; and he rejected none of the fundamental tenets of Judaism.” (Pages 8–9)
“Sanders portrays Judaism as a ‘covenantal nomism,’ a law-based religion within an assumed context of covenant grace, rather than a legalism where salvation is earned by works.” (Page 2)
“Christianity is not other than Judaism: it is the fulfillment of Judaism” (Page 20)
“Virtually all Jews held to a set of core beliefs such as monotheism, the election of Israel, the covenant and Torah, the temple and land.44 On the other hand, from the NT itself it is clear that already in the first century the earliest believers in Jesus shared core Christian beliefs, such as confession of Christ as Lord, his atoning death, belief in his resurrection from the dead, belief in the dawning of a new age, and salvation by faith in Christ.” (Page 18)
Praise for the Print Edition
Old or new? Continuity or discontinuity? In his survey of the New Testament, Donald Hagner demonstrates why it is not a case of either/or but of both/and—and indeed why continuity and discontinuity are paradoxically intertwined. Hagner's book should be compulsory reading for anyone who persists in supposing that the Old Testament is irrelevant for Christian faith.
—Morna D. Hooker, Lady Margaret's Professor Emerita, University of Cambridge
Against the current emphasis on continuity between the New Testament and the Hebrew Scripture, Hagner seeks to restore the balance by looking at what is new about the new era. The book is a reminder that what came with Jesus not only was tied to the promises of old but also brought fresh realities and a renewed hope. Hagner's survey of key New Testament texts shows that what came was a freshness that made old things new.
—Darrell L. Bock, senior research professor of New Testament studies, Dallas Theological Seminary
For far too long, Judaism and the Jewish law was presented as the toxin for which the Christian gospel was the antidote. The unspeakable evils of the Holocaust provided the necessary force to reverse that pendulum's motion, but in some circles it has swung too far in the direction of downplaying the decisive importance of what was new in the proclamation of God's acts in Jesus and in the giving of the Spirit. In this accessible volume, veteran scholar Donald Hagner sets forth the evidence for discontinuity that cannot be ignored or written off with integrity as we seek to balance the rootedness of Jesus and the early church in the faith of Israel with the new wine that could not be contained in the wineskins of the parent religion.
—David A. deSilva, author of The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude: What Earliest Christianity Learned from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
Product Details
- Title: How New is the New Testament? First-Century Judaism and the Emergence of Christianity
- Author: Donald A. Hagner
- Publisher: Baker Academic
- Publication Date: 2018
- Pages: 224
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Topic: Biblical Theology