A second difficulty lies in Stark’s assumption that there existed in
first-century Judaism a “traditional orthodoxy,” against which Hellenized
Diaspora Jews would have been considered to be, and would have felt
themselves, marginal. Stark does not provide any support for this assump-
tion; this aspect of his argument testifies to his reliance on scholarly works
that predate, or do not take into account, the significant work of the last
several decades, which suggests a variety within first-century Judaism and
a rather lengthy and by no means linear process by which one particular
type of Judaism eventually became recognized as normative (Cohen 1987a,
134–37). While one may speak more confidently of a normative Judaism in
the fourth and fifth centuries CE, even this normative Judaism should not
be described as “orthodox” in the modern sense of the term (Rackman
1987, 682).
Third, it is unclear whether the Apostolic Council did, in fact, create a
Judaism that was free from ethnicity, to which Jews flocked in droves. Fol-
lowing Conzelmann, Stark argues that the Jewish Christians were the first
to avail themselves of freedom from the Law (1996, 61; cf. Conzelmann
1973, 83). Nonetheless, as both Conzelmann and Stark acknowledge, it is
uncertain exactly when it became unacceptable for Christians to observe the
Jewish law (see Stark 1996, 66). Conzelmann (1973, 84–86) attempts to
resolve this point by arguing that, while there were Jewish Christians for
whom the Law was still in effect, the Law itself as a way of life was called
into question by the Apostolic Council. The Council set in motion a conflict
regarding Jewish Christian obligation to keep the Law, and also raised
questions about how Jewish and Gentile Christians might live together in
community. Certainly, the evidence suggests that Jewish Christians contin-
ued to observe many of the visible aspects of Jewish law and custom; and,
indeed, according to another of Stark’s principles, this continuity of both
thought and practice itself would have contributed to the success of the mis-
sion to the Jews. But if this is the case, the argument that Christianity
appealed to Jews precisely because it offered an accessible belief system free
from Jewish ethnicity is considerably weakened.
Finally, despite our own earlier recourse to a modern analogy, the prin-
ciple behind using such analogies to illuminate ancient history may be
called into question. Stark’s defence of this methodological move is based
on the conviction that the principles that govern religious movements tran-
scend the particularities of time and space (1996, 22). Stark’s defence of this
argument entails a lecture on the use of “proper scientific concepts,” which
is addressed to historians who “seem to have considerable trouble with
the idea of general theories because they have not been trained in the dis-
nora
(Nora)
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