Dimensions of Baptism Biblical and Theological Studies

CHRISTIAN AND JEWISH BAPTISM

ACCORDING TO THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS

Everett Ferguson

The treatise^1 known as the Epistle of Barnabas shows a Jewish community

and a Christian community in contact, competition, and debate.^2 Of the

three proposed dates for Barnabas, the time of Vespasian (69-79 CE) has

few advocates,^3 the time of Hadrian (117-38 CE) has been most popular,^4

but recently the time of Nerva (96-98 CE) has gained favor.^5 With regard

to provenance, although Asia Minor has been proposed^6 and Syria with

better reason has supporters,^7 Egypt, and specifically Alexandria, seems

more likely.^8 The author was probably a Gentile convert to Christianity, a

1. Reidar Hvalvik, The Struggle for Scripture and Covenant: The Purpose of the
   Epistle of Barnabas and Jewish-Christian Competition in the Second Century (WUNT,
   2.82; Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), pp. 71-81 argues that Barnabas is a letter,
   specifically a protreptic letter, pp. 158-64. Ferdinand R. Prostmeier, Der Barnabasbrief
   (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999), pp. 86-89, takes both options: a tractate
   framed as a letter.


2. S. Lowry, 'The Confutation of Judaism in the Epistle of Barnabas', JJS 11
   (1960), pp. 1-33; repr. in Everett F. Ferguson (ed.), Early Christianity and Judaism
   (SEC, 6; New York: Garland, 1993), pp. 303-35.


3. J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, Part I, Vol. 2 (London: Macmillan,
   1890), p. 509.


4. E.g. Andreas Lindemann and Henning Paulsen, Die Apostolischen Vdter
   (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), p. 24; Hvalvik, Struggle, pp. 17-34 (p. 23); Prost-
   meier, Der Barnabasbrief pp. 111-19, specifies 130 or 131 CE (pp. 118-119).


5. Peter Richardson and Martin B. Shukster, 'Barnabas, Nerva, and the Yavnean
   Rabbis', JTS 34 (1983), pp. 31-55; James Carleton Paget, The Epistle of Barnabas
   (WUNT, 2.64; Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994), pp. 9-30 (28).


6. Klaus Wengst, Tradition und Theologie des Barnabasbriefes (Berlin: W. de
   Gruyter, 1971), p. 118.


7. E.g. Pierre Prigent and Robert A. Kraft, tpitre de Barnabe (SC, 172; Paris:
   Cerf, 1971), pp. 22-24.


8. Paget, The Epistle of Barnabas, pp. 30-42; Prostmeier, Der Barnabasbrief, pp.
   119-30.