chapter oneINTRODUCTION.. EarlyJewishChristiansandTheirGospels....................
The Ebionites’ and the Nazarenes’ possible relation to the early Jerusalem
community has often been debated. Over the history of research, both
have been assessed as genuine successors of the early Jerusalem commu-
nity. Ferdinand Christian Baur argued that the Ebionites were not origi-
nally a heretical sect but successors of the very first Jewish Christians in
Jerusalem. The Nazarenes, for their part, represented a later phase of Jew-
ish Christianity, which had developed from its strictly anti-Pauline stance
to a more lenient attitude towards the gentiles.^1 Among contemporary
scholars, Gerd Lüdemann^2 and Michael D. Goulder^3 have supported sim-
ilar views. On the other hand, Albrecht Ritschl^4 already argued, against
Baur, that strict Jewish Christianity with its anti-Paulinism can not be
considered the dominant current in first-century Christianity. In his
view, the Nazarenes, who accepted the apostle Paul, were the successors
of the early Jerusalem community. Ray A. Pritz^5 has presented a similar
interpretation.^6 According to him, the history of the Nazarenes can be
traced back to the early Jerusalem community, while the Ebionites came
out of a split among the Nazarene ranks around the turn of the first cen-
tury.
Although the church fathers referred to gospels that were used by the
Ebionites and the Nazarenes, no manuscripts have survived that could be
identified with these references. This is also the case with theGospel of the
Hebrewsfrom which the church fathers also present some quotations. The
Gospel of the Hebrewsis the only explicit title that appears in the ancient
(^1) Baur (), , n. .
(^2) Lüdemann , –.
(^3) Goulder , –.
(^4) Ritschl , –.
(^5) Pritz , , , –.
(^6) Pritz is followed by Mimouni , –; Blanchetière , , , –,
; Bauckham , .