Vines Intertwined: A History of Jews and Christians from the Babylonian Exile to the Advent of Islam
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Overview
The study of Jewish and Christian history in antiquity is experiencing a renaissance. Textual witnesses and archaeological sites are being reevaluated and revisited. As a result, author Leo Sandgren asserts that the relationship between Jews and Christians has shifted from a “mother-daughter” paradigm to one better described as “siblings.”
Recognizing that Judaism and Christianity are what they are because of each other and that they were not formed in isolation, Sandgren provides readers and researchers a comprehensive generation-by-generation political history of the Jews—from the fall of the First Temple to the start of the Middle Ages. With a good subject index and a strong chronological framework, this book is a convenient work on this extended period of antiquity. Making use of numerous contemporary studies as well as often neglected classics, Sandgren thoroughly develops the concept of “the people of God” and the core ideology behind Jewish and Christian self-definition.
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- Presents a detailed history of Jews and Christians from 640 BC–AD 640
- Features an extensive bibliography section for further study
- Part One (640–201 BC)
- From Josiah to the Fall of Jerusalem (640–586 BC)
- Exile and Return (586–500 BC)
- Restoration of Judah (500–400 BC)
- The Hellenistic Age Begins (400–301 BC)
- Ptolemaic Era (301–201 BC)
- Synthesis of Part One: Religious Development—Foundations I (640–201 BC)
- Part Two (201 BC–14 AD)
- The Maccabean Revolt (201–161 BC)
- Rise and Fall of the Hasmonean Kingdom (161–67 BC)
- The Coming of Rome (67–27 BC)
- Pax Augusta and Herod the Great (27 BC–14 AD)
- Synthesis of Part Two: Religious Development—Foundations II (201 BC–14 AD)
- Part Three (14–138 AD)
- Birth of the Nazarenes (14–37 AD)
- A Troubled Diaspora for Jews and Jewish Believers (37–54 AD)
- The Great War (54–70 AD)
- Jews and Christians without a Temple (70–117 AD)
- Farewell Jerusalem: The Last Jewish War (117–138 AD)
- Synthesis of Part Three: Jews and Christians I (14–138 AD)
- Part Four (138–312 AD)
- Antonine Peace and the Struggles of Jews and Christians (138–192 AD)
- Severan Decay, Christian Growth, and the Glory of Judah the Prince (192–235 AD)
- Roman Empire in Crisis and the Rise of Sasanian Persia (235–284 AD)
- Diocletian and the Great Persecution of the Church (284–312 AD)
- Synthesis of Part Four: Jews and Christians II (138–312 AD)
- Part Five (312–455 AD)
- Constantine and the Christian Empire (312–337 AD)
- Julian the Apostate: A Dilemma for Christians and Jews (337–364 AD)
- Theodosius I: The Christianization of Hellenes and Jews (364–395 AD)
- Fall of Rome, Doctors of the Church, and New Heights for the Patriarch and Exilarch (395–420 AD)
- The Sun Sets in the West and the Demise of the Jewish Patriarchate (420–455 AD)
- Synthesis of Part Five: Jews and Christians III (312–455 AD)
- Part Six (455–640 AD)
- End of the Old Roman Empire and the Persecution of Persian Jews (455–491 AD)
- Religious Tolerance in the West and the Expansion of Christians and Jews in the East (491–526 AD)
- Justinian’s Byzantine Rome and the Impact of Caesaropapism on Christians, Pagans, Samaritans, and Jews (526–565 AD)
- A Papal Throne for Christians and Jews (565–602 AD)
- The Last Great War in Antiquity and the Advent of Islam (602–640 AD)
- Synthesis of Part Six: Jews and Christians IV (455–640 AD)
The author charts the history of this expansive period in striking detail and with formidable accuracy and clarity of expression, with a focus on the implications for the complex relationship between Judaism and emergent Christianity. The coverage of the period before the appearance of Christianity demonstrates the profound influence of both Persian and Hellenistic cultures on Judaism—an important condition that would subsequently play a role in the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. Sandgren does justice to the complexity of this relationship and its distinctive features both in various regions and over the course of time. His close attention to the history of the relationship also helps avoid simple explanations for both the antipathy that marked this relationship in the early centuries and the startling examples of peaceful coexistence and interaction . . . it is very rewarding reading for anyone who perseveres through the deep scan of history its author provides.
—The Bible Today
[Sandgren] presents Jews and Christians as siblings, emerging in the first centuries of the Common Era, with a common ancestry. . . . This he does in great historical detail, including maps and lists of prominent figures. . . . He reflects the latest scholarship; footnotes give ample scope for further exploration. This book is an invaluable source of information . . . More than that, it contributes to the ongoing dialogue between Jews and Christians by looking anew at their early history, and asking difficult questions about the relationship between rhetoric and reality.
—Theological Book Review
The book . . . chronicl[es] how proto-Judaism became both Judaism and Christianity and how the two groups influenced each other up until the rise of Islam. In addition, Sandgren adds helpful maps and charts and an important synthesis at the end of each section. He also adds an extensive and useful epilogue explaining some of the other issues pertaining to a modern Jewish-Christian dialogue. . . . His detail is impeccable and his research has depth and is readable. This book does many things well, including showing the complexities of the shared history of Judaism and Christianity. In addition, the comprehensive bibliography includes both Jewish and Christian sources that should be important to both groups. This book is well written and convincing on many of the arguments. . . . Sandgren . . . adds an important historical analysis that should challenge anyone interested in the development and dialogue between Judaism and Christianity. This book is perhaps most profitable as a resource for further research. However, it also asks important questions.
—Trinity Journal
Sandgren has done an admirable job in providing a large-scale and broadly middle-of-the-road overview of the history of Jews, Judaism, and the early church. . . . The intended audience is not the specialist, but the person who needs an introduction into any of the periods discussed.
—Journal for the Study of the New Testament
Sandgren shows a remarkable knowledge of the grand sweep of western history (with occasional reference to its cultural landmarks) as well as the details of both Jewish and Christian history. He is even-handed and nonpolemical in his presentation. . . . One must be impressed with the diligence and erudition required in producing this book. It will be referred to often in discussions of the relations of Jews and Christians in the formative period for both modern religions.
—Interpretation
- Title: Vines Intertwined: A History of Jews and Christians from the Babylonian Exile to the Advent of Islam
- Author: Leo Dupree Sandgren
- Publisher: Baker Academic
- Publication Date: 2010
- Pages: 864
Reviews
1 rating
Jeff O'Neal
12/15/2015
I found a scholarly review online in a Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations (CCJR) article: Leo Duprée Sandgren Vines Intertwined: A History of Jews and Christians from the Babylonian Exile to the Advent of Islam (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2010), paperback, xxvi + 838 pp. with CD-ROM Reviewed by Joshua Ezra Burns, Marquette University Though there have been numerous scholarly studies on the common origins of Judaism and Christianity, there has yet to be a definitive historical treatment of the subject. In his textbook Vines Intertwined: A History of Jews and Christians from the Babylonian Exile to the Advent of Islam, Leo Sandgren undertakes the ambitious task of narrating a coherent history of the two re-ligious traditions on the basis of their theoretical conceptions and implementations over the roughly 1,300-year span between the fall of the kingdom of Judah and the rise of Islam. As stat-ed in his introduction, the author’s aim is to present something more than a pair of parallel histories of the two sibling religions during their early centuries of coexistence. By emphasizing, rather, the inherent interconnectedness of the early Jewish and Christian religious communities throughout this period, Sandgren seeks to demonstrate how each helped define the other during the early centuries of the Common Era, and how each informed the other’s unique theological and social views. He pursues this argument through a series of topical discussions tracing the respective evolutionary trajectories of the Jewish and Christian communities with particular at-tention to their points of intersection. He thereby argues that what emerged from antiquity were not two distinct religious communities but two culturally proximate communities who “shared common interests and the mutual needs for survival” by virtue of their common cultural heritage (p. 7). The success of Sandgren’s project is subject to debate both in respect to its premises and its re-sults. Continuing critical efforts to demonstrate the commonalities between early Judaism and early Christianity have yielded results too numerous and too diverse to be reconciled with a sin-gle, monolithic analytical principle. Sandgren’s attempt, therefore, to conform these results to his particular historical narrative is bound to privilege certain critical assumptions over others. In general, Sandgren seems to locate himself squarely in the camp of the sort of conciliatory (and often apologetic) discourse on the Jewish context of the apostolic church that has dominated New Testament scholarship since the Holocaust. This is not, of course, a bad thing. But focusing on efforts to demonstrate the common ground shared by Jews and Christians in antiquity entails the marginalization or exclusion of scholarship predicated on other equally valid analytical grounds. For example, his effort to avoid labeling the early Jewish followers of Jesus as Chris-tians or even as Jewish Christians ignores the issue of whether the individuals in question regarded themselves as Jews, and, if so, in what sense. In fact, one is left to wonder what sorts of beliefs these so-called “Jewish believers” actually professed aside from their likewise ill-defined devotion to Jesus. These questions, of course, engage issues of historical interpretation far more complex than Sandgren chooses to acknowledge. Needless to say, ambiguities of this nature sometimes undermine the general integrity of his historiographical method. REVIEW Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations Volume 6 (2011): Burns R1-2 Sandgren, Vines Intertwined Burns R 2 http://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/scjr Sandgren’s attempt at comprehensiveness exhibits its greatest weakness in respect to the litera-ture and culture of the early rabbinic sages. Here, the author relies primarily on the methodologically questionable and, frankly speaking, outdated work of Jacob Neusner, whose much-criticized efforts to remove ancient Judaism from historical discussion have been the source of significant misunderstanding among scholars of early Christianity. In his efforts, there-fore, to relate the practice of the Jewish religion in antiquity to the contemporaneous practice of Christianity he tends to analyze the former on the basis of the latter, adopting a paradigm of comparative religious phenomenology largely removed from the context of history. When he does try to situate persons or developments within the early rabbinic movement in specific histor-ical contexts, it is almost exclusively in reference to parallel developments in the Christian tradition. In fact, his most elaborate and arguably most incisive discussions of Judaism during the flourishing of the rabbinic movement are based not on the copious rabbinic documentation but on the relatively scarce Christian and Roman imperial documents on the Jews. As a result, the net effect of Sandgren’s portrait of early rabbinic Judaism is skewed heavily toward those of its facets mirrored in contemporaneous Christian practice and thought. In fairness, Sandgren’s general inattention to emerging scholarship on the history and culture of the early rabbinic movement is not unpardonable. Indeed, it is difficult to fault a textbook author for failing to account for every current scholarly debate on the many and diverse topics covered in a work, let alone one of such impressive scope. One could single out similar deficiencies in virtually any area of discussion to which the author applies his heuristic lens. Controversial is-sues such as the causes of the Maccabean revolt, the attitudes of Jesus and Paul toward the Jewish religion, and the nature of Constantine’s conversion are treated with the economy of space appropriate to Sandgren’s broad-based treatment, yet without attention to the diverse crit-ical opinions expressed in the more nuanced treatments of these subjects that appear to inform a great deal of his narrative. His attempt to be comprehensive in a project of this scope makes what is already a massive tome positively cumbersome to navigate. One is left to wonder, there-fore, whether Sandgren’s project is too much for one historian to manage, at least between the covers of a single book. To be clear, I neither mean to suggest that Sandgren’s project is fundamentally flawed, nor his synthesis inaccurate or misleading. Often, his points of critical reference represent the very best of scholarship in the fields through which he pursues his narrative. His presentation is erudite, his writing style fluid, and, above all, his unique expertise thoroughly and judiciously applied. I would not hesitate, therefore, to recommend his work to the reader seeking an informed and ac-cessible overview of the topics he discusses. It seems to me, however, that Sandgren’s book will find its greatest utility in precisely those situations where one must acquire a great deal of gen-eral knowledge yet with minimal attention to its sources. I might recommend Vines Intertwined as a textbook for an undergraduate course, although I hesitate to advise anyone to condense over a thousand years of Jewish and Christian history into a single academic term. Perhaps, then, it would work better as a companion to a sequence of courses on early Christianity predicated on the laudable principles of contemporary interreligious understanding espoused by the author in his introduction. From a critical standpoint, however, the manifold subjects and often complex in-terpretations sampled by Sandgren would be better approached through a range of historiographical objectives more diverse than those utilized here.
