preface xiHeikki Räisänen’sResearch Unit for the Formation of Early Jewish and
Christian Ideology(Centre of Excellence of the Academy of Finland)
at the Department of Biblical Studies of the University of Helsinki. It
provided a context for aProject on Early Jewish Christianitywhere I was
able delve into problems of studying the patristic sources, together with
two colleagues, Matti Myllykoski and Sakari Häkkinen. Cooperation
with Matti and Sakari was most helpful in laying the grounds for my
approach to the topic of this volume.
Three-year post-doctoral research funding from the Academy of Fin-
land and an invitation from the Institute for Antiquity and Christian-
ity, Claremont Graduate University, enabled me to spend the academic
year – as a visiting scholar in the friendly Californian atmo-
sphere, together with my wife Tiina and our three children Laura, Eveli-
ina and Juhana. We all feel very grateful for the warm and helpful recep-
tion both in the academic community as well as in the neighborhood.
Jon Ma. Asgeirsson, the associate director of the IAC, gave generously of
his time—his last weeks in Claremont before leaving for Iceland in order
to take up his chair as the Professor of New Testament Studies and Early
Christianity there—helping us with the practical arrangements, includ-
ing finding an appropriate house for the family of five. Our landlord,
Donald Wang, and his exciting house as well as our most friendly and
helpful neighbors, the Gaetes and the Sears, will always have their special
place in our hearts and collective memories. Dennis MacDonald, then
newly appointed director of the IAC, and Karen Jo Torjesen, the Dean
of the School of Religion at CGU, were equally generous in their aca-
demic hospitality. The library of the IAC, with its “Tune room” provided
an appropriate context for finalizing a Finnish translation of the Apoc-
ryphon of James and my initial studies of the patristic sources of early
Jewish Christianity.
In Claremont, we were also privileged to enjoy the hospitality of
James and Gesine Robinson. We discussed the relationship between the
Nazarenes, the Ebionites and Q, but, for a long time, I could not fit
these considerations into the picture that was emerging from my own
analysis. The short chapter I have included in the present volume suggests
some connections, but it is clear that the topic deserves a more elaborate
analysis, to which the conclusions of this book, if accepted, provides some
new starting points.
The year in Claremont also launched my cooperation with F. Stanley
Jones, the director of the IAC’s projectJewish Christianity: The Pseudo-
Clementines.Stan’sresearchonPseudo-Clementineshas been most