group called itself, would have appeared to outsiders as yet one more mes-
sianic movement within Palestinian Judaism. In their social organization
and religious practice, they resembled other Jewish groups: they met in
one another’s homes for table fellowship, prayer, and study, in the manner
of the later Pharisaichavurot;some continued to worship in the Temple
and to participate in the life of their local synagogue communities.
The early years of the Jesus movement in Palestine remain sketchy be-
cause of the sparse quantity and apologetic nature of the source material.
The book of Acts is the principal source for the first three decades, but its
narrow focus and idealizing tendencies present some obstacles. Acts por-
trays the movement having its center in Jerusalem under the aegis of the
Twelve and expanding under their auspices, with Peter and James, the
brother of Jesus, as the chief leaders. In itself the account is credible, but it
probably does not tell the whole story, and for many historians it fits too
neatly with Luke’s understanding of salvation history. It is also countered
by the putative existence of other groups in other locales. Independent tra-
ditions in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew and in the epilogue of John
point to appearances of the risen Jesus in Galilee. Moreover, a small hand-
ful of passages in the Synoptic Gospels (e.g., Matt. 10:5-15) seem to reflect
the interests and lifestyle of traveling bands of miracle-working teachers
and prophets in Galilee, Syria, and the Decapolis, figures attested more
clearly at the end of the first century in theDidache.These wandering
charismatics would have been active alongside more settled clusters of fol-
lowers in towns and villages, relying upon them to support their itinerant,
mendicant existence.
Some scholars have posited the existence of a Galilean community on
the basis of the Q document, a Greek source for Jesus’ sayings adapted by
the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Recent reconstructions suggest that the
group revered Jesus as a countercultural wisdom sage and attached no re-
demptive significance to his death and resurrection. These reconstruc-
tions, though, are as problematic in their own way as the idealized picture
in Acts. Some literary stratifications of the Q source rely on dubious as-
sumptions regarding the generic incompatibility of the wisdom sayings
(supposedly early) and apocalyptic sayings (allegedly later) attributed to
Jesus. Just as questionable is the notion that Q exhausts everything that its
author(s) and community believed about Jesus. Most speculative of all is
the correlation of Q’s alleged literary layers with stages in the history of the
“Q community.”
The Jesus movement likely did take root in different places rather398daniel c. harlowEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
Tuesday, October 09, 2012 12:04:17 PM