and promise-and-fulfillment exegesis of the Scriptures. His acquaintance
with Jewish tradition seems to be pure book learning.
All these so-called general epistles virtually ignore Jews and Judaism
of the first century, either because their social settings were distant from
Jewish communities or because their authors’ varied agendas simply re-
quired no direct engagement. The same is true of the Deutero-Pauline and
Johannine epistles. Ephesians, for instance, has a moving statement about
how in Christ Gentiles have been brought near to the “commonwealth of
Israel” and the “covenants of promise,” and how the “dividing wall” of hos-
tility between Jews and Gentiles has been torn down. Yet the union of Jew
and Gentile in one new humanity is bought at the price of Christ’s nullify-
ing the “law [made up] of commandments in decrees” (Eph. 2:11-22; cf.
Col. 2:16-19 for a disparaging reference to Jewish dietary practices). It is a
unity that effectively erases Jewish distinctiveness. Nevertheless, Ephesians
and the other epistles appropriate early Jewish tradition mostly by treating
it as a resource for constructing and strengthening Christian identity.
Their authors ransack the Septuagint for self-defining language in order to
forge a link with Israel’s sacred past and to write Christian believers into
her story. To judge only by what they wrote, the Christians reflected in
these documents look less like competitors of Jews than aspiring imitators
and heirs.
With a few notable exceptions, the situation is largely the same in the
book of Revelation, an apocalypse with an epistolary framework written
by a Jewish prophet of Christ named John, and dispatched to seven com-
munities in as many cities in Asia Minor. It was probably written (in an
often awkward Semiticizing Greek) during the reign of the emperor
Domitian (81-96c.e.). It calls for radical cultural disengagement, urging
Asian Christians not to assimilate to the idolatrous political, economic,
and religious system of the Roman Empire, and preparing them for the
prospect of persecution. The work has a high Christology: although it does
not explicitly assert Christ’s preexistence or divinity, Jesus nevertheless
shares completely in the sovereignty of God. Unlike angels (Rev. 19:10;
22:8-9), Jesuslegitimatelyreceives worship in a heavenly throne room
scene precisely parallel to one focused on God (4:1–5:14; cf. 7:10; 11:15; 12:10-
12; 19:6-8). He also shares with God the title “the alpha and omega” (1:8
and 22:13; cf. 1:17 and 21:6) and is petitioned in prayer (22:20). Virtually ev-
ery line of the work is steeped in the language of Jewish scripture, though
never by way of direct quotation; and at more than one point, the full
complement of God’s faithful people is defined in terms of the twelve408daniel c. harlowEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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