introduction Overall, the study of indicators of Jewish-Christian profiles is an ana-
lytical approach where the “profile,” the summary of “Jewish” and “Chris-
tian” components,is the main thing. The terms that are used to character-
ize this profile are secondary. In the following, I occasionally use various
terms—general terms such as “Christian Jews” (emphasizing the “Jew-
ish” core to which “Christian” components are added) or “Jewish Chris-
tians” (emphasizing the “Christian” core to which “Jewish” components
are added), or more exact terms like “Samaritan-Elchasite Christians,”
etc.—in order to characterize the overall profile which is being discussed.
Notably, these terms are of secondary importance; other terms could be
used as well—as long as there is agreement on the actualJewish-Christian
profile.Indicators of Jewish-Christian Gospels?
Andrew Gregory has questioned whether it is justified to speak ofJewish-
Christian gospelsas a category that is somehow set apart from other
canonical and apocryphal gospels.^29 Given our meager knowledge about
the complete Jewish-Christian gospels, Gregory’s point is well taken; as
long as we do not have entire gospels available, it is hazardous to char-
acterize the gospelsper seas Jewish Christian. It might, indeed, be more
preferable to speak of apocryphal—these gospels are truly apocryphal!—
gospels used by early Jewish Christians. This would leave open the pre-
cise nature of the gospels. It is also problematic that the Jewish-Christian
character of theGospel of the Ebionitesand theGospel of the Hebrews
and/or the “Gospel of the Nazarenes” is usually taken more or less as
granted. In my opinion, this has often led into eisegesis as regards the
social setting of the Jewish Christian gospels: “Jewish” and “Christian”
traits are selectively picked from the texts to line up with a scholar’s over-
all theory of the history of Jewish Christianity.^30(^29) Cf. Gregory .
(^30) In addition to Klijn’s reconstruction of the social setting of the Rich Man’s Question
in Origen’s commentary on Matthew (see below, Chapter .), I provide two other
examples that demonstrate how this has happened in the case of Origen’s passage. Resch,
who thought that the “Gospel of the Nazarenes” and theGospel of the Ebioniteswere
later editions of theGospel of the Hebrews(Resch , ), assumed that the miserable
conditions of the Jews in the quotation (which he thought was from theGospel of the
Hebrews) suggest that it originated among Jewish refugees in eastern Jordan and southern
parts of Syria after the destruction of Jerusalem (Resch , ). Handmann—for
whom theGospel of the Hebrews(which had nothing to do with Epiphanius’ “mutilated”
Gospel of the Ebionites) was different from the Hebrew original of Matthew but was equal
to it as regards age and importance—explained that the story about the rich man in the