Theories, Models, and Metaphors

These terms – theory, model, metaphor – are notoriously difficult to define. Nor is it a straightforward matter to pin down their interrelationships. In the introduction to his edited volume What is Theory?, Hervé Corvellec describes “theory as something so elusive and multi-faceted” that it defies definition.Footnote ⁹ As his book illustrates, “so many things are labeled ‘theory,’ for so many purposes and from so many intractable epistemological perspectives, that … most academics would consider any answers to the question to be at best incomplete and at worst downright inadequate.”Footnote ¹⁰

Drawing on the etymology of “theory” – the Greek term meaning to view or observe – Peter Zima defines theory as a “very specific way of viewing objects and relating them to one another within a specific type of discourse;”Footnote ¹¹ Zima notes that theories are not neutral, but are “based on ideological interests and cultural particularities.”Footnote ¹² He is no doubt correct. In this Element, however, my concern is not primarily to identify the ideological interests of the relevant theories but to consider how they are used as vehicles for ideas and ideologies about Christian origins. For the purposes of the present study, I will therefore adopt a straightforward – non-theorized – definition of theory as a systematic and rational form of abstract thinking about a phenomenon.Footnote ¹³

Some historians describe the theories – and narratives – of Christian origins as models. In his 2003 essay “Modeling the ‘Parting of the Ways,’” for example, Martin Goodman provides no fewer than nine diagrams representing different suggestions for how Judaism and Christianity separated. Udo Schnelle describes five such models.Footnote ¹⁴ Yet rarely do scholars define what they mean by a model.Footnote ¹⁵

One can hardly blame them. Like “theory,” “model” can be defined in myriad ways, creating a confusing situation that has been called the “model muddle.”Footnote ¹⁶ Daniela Bailer-Jones defines a model as “an interpretative description of a phenomenon [‘things happening’] that facilitates access to that phenomenon.”Footnote ¹⁷ This definition, however, is too vague to be helpful. Aiming for greater precision, Eiko Fried suggests that models “illustrate with precision the mechanisms that might govern the processes that lead to a phenomenon by decomposing processes into relevant parts, properties of these parts, relations between the parts, and temporal dynamics of their change.”Footnote ¹⁸ This definition suggests that models describe, or perhaps better, illuminate the relationships among the various aspects of a phenomenon.

How, then, do models relate to theories? Fried defines theories as “bodies of knowledge that are broad in scope and aim to explain robust phenomena,” whereas models are “instantiations of theories, narrower in scope and often more concrete.” Evolution and gravitation are theories, but they are applied to topics such as mate selection and planetary motion via models. Models, therefore, mediate between theories and concrete phenomena.Footnote ¹⁹ How they do so, however, depends on the case at hand.

From the theories that, in my view, helped shape the narratives of Christian origins, one can infer models that describe the changing relationship between Judaism and Christianity in the first few centuries ce.Footnote ²⁰ Theories and models, however we define them, are also entwined with metaphors. Models in particular are difficult to distinguish from metaphors, because, as Max Black noted, models themselves are metaphorical in nature: “To speak of ‘models’ in connection with a scientific theory already smacks of the metaphorical.”Footnote ²¹

Metaphors are extremely helpful as shorthand ways of referring to complex ideas. As Charles Darwin famously said, “Everyone knows what is meant and implied by … metaphorical expressions, and they are almost necessary for brevity.”Footnote ²² I’m not certain that everyone knows what metaphorical expressions mean and imply, but there is no doubt that metaphors are useful and even necessary for referring to and describing complex phenomena.

Metaphors are key to some of the narratives discussed in this Element. Evolutionary theory, coupled with genetic theory, generated kinship metaphors to describe the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. The “parting of the ways” is itself a metaphor that is ubiquitous in the current discussion of Christian origins. Like “theory” and “model,” “metaphor” comes in for some high-level, and, one might say, obscure discussion.Footnote ²³ But for our purposes, a simple definition suffices: the term denotes “the transfer of a concept endowed with a meaning derived from a specific context to another context.”Footnote ²⁴

Metaphors are not only descriptive but also generative. As Stambovsky pointed out, a well-chosen metaphor, “whether as a heuristic device in research, as an explanatory scheme in teaching, or as an embellishment in writing, can lead to insights that might have taken much longer to emerge without it.”Footnote ²⁵ Max Black emphasized that metaphors “can sometimes generate new knowledge and insight” by changing relationships between the things designated.”Footnote ²⁶ Were it not for particular metaphors, for example, certain scientific discoveries may never have occurred. Without the model of ocean waves, scientists might not have developed the wave theory of light; without the “billiard ball” model of molecular collisions, we could not explain the kinetic theory of gases; and apart from Bohr’s planetary model of the atom, atomic theory would have been developed far more slowly.Footnote ²⁷

Metaphors have also proven highly generative for historiography. Thomas Kuhn adopted the metaphor of political revolution to describe changes in scientific paradigms. In doing so, he helped to dislodge the “standard linear views of scientific history that regard science as cumulatively progressive.”Footnote ²⁸ William McNeill used the metaphor of macro-parasitism, in which small parasites feed on human bodies by killing and eating them, to describe exploitative relations among groups and classes of human beings.Footnote ²⁹ In both cases, metaphors taken from political or scientific source domains have to generate new ideas or challenge prevailing assumptions about historical processes.

However generative metaphors may be, they also have their limitations. As Max Black notes, the potential of a metaphor lies in the way that it selects, emphasizes, and organizes features of reality.Footnote ³⁰ In stressing some points, however, metaphors also suppress or ignore other features of the phenomena to which they are applied.Footnote ³¹ Being attentive to the theories and metaphors cited or implied in historical narratives can help us understand them better, and their resonances – for theories too have resonances – can help us consider the implications that particular narratives might have for matters both within and also beyond the immediate subject matter under discussion.

It is not enough, however, to analyze how a metaphor works in a given discourse. It is also necessary to evaluate theories, models, and metaphors, not by deciding whether they are correct or true but whether they are apt. Do they cohere? Do they make sense of the sources at our disposal? Of course, presuppositions, contexts, beliefs, and biases will also come into play when we engage in such evaluation. Yet evaluate we will.

Before We Begin …

It is impossible to talk about the historiography on Christian origins without using two terms whose referents and relevance are highly contested today. These terms are “Christianity” and “Judaism.” The term “Christian” first appears in Acts 26:28 and 1 Peter 26:28, but it is unclear when it came to refer to Christ-believers in general. The Greek terms, Christianismos and Ioudaismos – literally, Christianity and Judaism – first appear in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch in the early second century (Ignatius Letter to the Magnesians X).Footnote ³² It is not clear that these terms already referred to these movements writ large. Although everyone agrees that there were Jews in the first century, scholars debate whether “Judaism” should be used with reference to antiquity.Footnote ³³ The term “gentile” will be used to refer to an inhabitant of the Greco–Roman world who is neither Jewish nor Christian, while the term gentile Christian will describe a Christ-follower who does not come from a Jewish background.Footnote ³⁴ Lower case “gentile” will be used except in direct quotations in which upper-case Gentile appears.

Nevertheless, one cannot avoid the terms when discussing the historiography, as they are used, most often uncritically, by most of the historians and theologians whose work will be discussed in the pages that follow. For that reason, I will be using these terms without adjudicating their applicability to the ancient groups at the centre of the Christian origins debate.Footnote ³⁵

Finally, all biblical quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition, unless otherwise stated.Footnote ³⁶

The Great Man Theory and Christian Origins

The focus on heroes and hero-worship is readily applied to Christ and Christianity. On this point, Carlyle waxed eloquent: “Hero-worship, heartfelt prostrate admiration, submission, burning, boundless, for a noblest godlike Form of Man, – is not that the germ of Christianity itself?”Footnote ⁴² By any measure, Christ was a Great Hero; Christians worshipped him not because he was a first-century Jewish man but because they believed him to be the Messiah and Son of God. But Carlyle did not analyze Jesus’ greatness. Jesus may have been “the greatest of all Heroes,” but, perhaps for this very reason, “he is One … whom we do not name here!” Out of Christian piety, Carlyle implored his readers to: “Let sacred silence meditate that sacred matter; you will find it the ultimate perfection of a principle extant throughout man’s whole history on earth.”Footnote ⁴³ To maintain this sacred silence, Carlyle chose Muhammad as an example of the religious hero, not because he was “the most eminent Prophet; but as the one we are freest to speak of …. Farther, as there is no danger of our becoming, any of us, Mahometans, I mean to say all the good of him I justly can.”Footnote ⁴⁴

Unlike Carlyle, his Christian contemporaries were not at all reticent to name Jesus a Great Man. Some also put Paul into this category. Now, the New Testament does not portray Jesus and Paul as rivals. Jesus did not know Paul, and Paul unfailingly described himself as a staunch believer in Jesus as the Christ or Messiah. But on the pages of scholarly writings from this era, Jesus and Paul were in fierce competition for the role of Christianity’s founder.

The debate centred on two main issues. The first concerned whether Jesus and/or Paul set out deliberately to create the religion we call Christianity. Scholars’ perspectives on this issue depended at least in part on their views about the capacity for ancient individuals to plan such complex endeavours. The second issue pertained to the role that Judaism, or, more specifically, the Great Man’s stance toward Judaism, played in the origins of Christianity. Those on all sides of this debate viewed separation from Judaism as essential to any account of Christian origins.

Jesus as Founder

The Jesus-as-Great-Man narrative follows the model inherent in The Great Man theory. In this narrative, God created the context within which the Great Man was to arise by devising a plan for the imminent salvation of the people through apocalyptic intervention. The plan had been encoded in the Torah and Prophets, which pointed forward to Jesus’ role as the divine offspring and agent tasked with putting the plan in motion. Doing so involved dismantling the covenant – the laws and practices – that God had previously held with the Jewish people. Although many did not recognize Jesus as Saviour, those Jews and gentiles who worshipped him became the nucleus of the Church going forward.

The French theologian Ernst Renan had no doubt that Jesus created Christianity. In his 1863 book, La vie de Jésus, Renan explicated the life of “the sublime person of the Founder” on the basis of the Gospels, which, in his words, were “composed of the tender remembrances, and simple narratives, of the first two Christian generations, still full of the strong impression which the illustrious Founder had produced … .”Footnote ⁴⁵

In calling Jesus the Founder, Renan did not mean that Jesus developed and carried out an intricate plan for the early church. Indeed, “the rock of metaphysical subtleties … was in nowise created by the Founder. Jesus had neither dogma nor system, but a fixed personal resolution, which, exceeding in intensity every other created will, directs to this hour the destinies of humanity.”Footnote ⁴⁶

The opposite view was expressed by John Spalding, some three decades later. Although Spalding agreed that Jesus was the Founder of Christianity, he refused to compare him to the Great Men that Carlyle discussed. Spalding understood that there were many great religious teachers, such as Zoroaster, Buddha, Confucius, and Muhammad.Footnote ⁴⁷ But Jesus was in a different category altogether, because, unlike these other teachers, he was not a human being but a divine being, the Messiah, whose coming was foretold by scripture. Whereas human Great Men are shaped by their environment, Jesus’ teachings and principles “were entirely new to the world of Heathenism and of Judaism.”Footnote ⁴⁸

Spalding described Jesus as “the central figure of the Gospels, Whom the Church has ever held to be her Founder and Head, and Who has been unquestionably the Source of all her noblest teaching and of the best and holiest aspirations and endeavours of the Christian world.”Footnote ⁴⁹ Spalding’s Jesus was not only the source of Christianity’s teachings but also of its institutions, which would be required by the Kingdom of God that Jesus ushered in.Footnote ⁵⁰

In proclaiming his gospel, Jesus aimed to found “a Divine Society [which] was to proclaim Him to the world in all His Beneficent offices.”Footnote ⁵¹ In service of this aim, “He pursued also a plan which was unexampled in all history, of beginning with the poor and the illiterate, classes which Judaism regarded as accursed. He chose from among them His Apostles, the officers whom He especially instructed and intrusted with His work.”Footnote ⁵² Immediately after Pentecost, the church began “gaining multitudes of disciples and baptizing them, keeping them true to the Apostles’ doctrine and their Fellowship, to the Public Worship, and the Holy Communion of Christ’s Body and Blood.”Footnote ⁵³ From this time onward, the church “claimed as its Founder Jesus Christ.”Footnote ⁵⁴

Henry Cadbury disagreed with this portrait of the Great Man. In his Reference Cadbury1937 book The Peril of Modernizing Jesus, Henry Cadbury opined that no ancient person, not even Jesus, plotted a career de novo. In Cadbury’s view, “Jesus probably had no definite, unified, conscious purpose.”Footnote ⁵⁵ Many years later, E. P. Sanders commended Cadbury for his salutary “warning against imposing modern categories and ways of thought on the ancient world.”Footnote ⁵⁶ Nevertheless, Sanders argued that ancient individuals and groups were most certainly capable of long-term planning. Intentional programs were proposed and enacted by the haberim, a Pharisaic subgroup that observed a higher level of food purity than did other Pharisees. The Essenes, too, had a well-developed program: to seek “a purified, ‘true’ Israel … composed of people dedicated to keeping ‘the covenant of Moses’ as it was interpreted by the sect’s leaders.”Footnote ⁵⁷ In support of Sanders, one might also point to the massive building projects of King Herod, which were carried out over a very long period of time and were intended to cement his legacy.Footnote ⁵⁸

Sanders suggested that Jesus, too, may have had a plan, but he did not intend to create the church as an institution. Rather, in keeping with his apocalyptic eschatology, Jesus may have understood himself as participating in the imminent and divinely initiated transformation of the present world order.Footnote ⁵⁹ This did not make Jesus the Founder of Christianity. Credit for Christian institution-building belongs to Jesus’ followers, who, “by carrying through the logic of his own position in a transformed situation, created a movement which would grow and continue to alter in ways unforeseeable in Jesus’ own time, but in progressive steps, each one explicable in its own historical context.”Footnote ⁶⁰

Paul as “A” or “The” Founder of Christianity

It is highly unlikely that Jesus intended either to renounce Judaism or to create a new “religion.” If not Jesus, then perhaps Paul? A narrative in which Paul was the Great Man who founded Christianity is similar in structure to the Jesus as Hero story, but its details differ. In the Paul as Hero story, the groundwork was laid by Jesus and the movement that grew around him during his lifetime. Paul arose – chosen by the Risen Lord himself – to spearhead the gentile mission. Although he was not worshipped as Jesus was, he gathered many followers and his impact continued long after his death, shaping the history, beliefs, and demographics of Christianity to this day.

Some scoffed at this latter narrative of Christianity’s beginnings. In 1903, Paul Wernle declared that although Paul “brought Christianity out of Palestine and transplanted it among the Greeks,” he himself would have disputed the notion that he was a or the founder of Christianity.Footnote ⁶⁹ In a 1907 article, William H. Johnson remarked with some derision on the growth of “an influential school of younger writers in Germany [which] has confidently asserted that Paul and not Jesus Himself was the real founder of Christianity, meaning the Christianity of the churches and the creeds.”Footnote ⁷⁰ These young writers included Friedrich Nietzsche, who in 1892 declared that but for Paul, “there would be no Christianity; we would hardly have heard of a little Jewish sect whose master died on the cross … .”Footnote ⁷¹ For Johnson, it is Jesus and only Jesus who can be called the founder of Christianity. Here, he agrees with the late nineteenth-century scholars Arthur Hoyle and Alexander Mair, who argue that Paul was not a second founder of Christianity because he had simply developed Jesus’ own teachings without departing from them in any significant way.Footnote ⁷² The question, as David Wenham put it, hinged on whether Paul was “a faithful follower of Jesus or the founder of a new religion.”Footnote ⁷³ Did Paul further Christ’s own message, or did he substitute his own views and ideas for those of the one to whom he referred as Lord?Footnote ⁷⁴

But many did herald Paul as a Great Man. In 1905 William Wrede concluded that “Paul must be regarded as the second founder of Christianity … .This second founder of the Christian religion has without doubt as compared with the first exerted on the whole the stronger – not the better influence.”Footnote ⁷⁵ The following year, Heinrich Weinel proclaimed Paul rather than Jesus to have been the founder of Christianity, “if by Christianity we understand belief in dogmas as to the person of Christ and his propitiatory death.”Footnote ⁷⁶

A mediating, if somewhat convoluted, position is taken by Arnold Meyer. The last section of his 1909 book, Jesus or Paul, asks, “Who was the Founder of Christianity?”Footnote ⁷⁷ Meyer concluded that “Jesus alone is the sole founder of the religion we profess and of the Christianity which arose after Him. St. Paul, on the other hand, though not the sole founder, was still the principal founder of that form of Christianity which alone proved capable of subduing the wide world to Christ.”Footnote ⁷⁸

Evaluating the Great Man Theory of Christian Origins

Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century theologians disagreed on many matters, but they agreed on two main points. The first was that the creation of Christianity was directly related to, or perhaps even caused by, the rejection of or opposition to Judaism. Second was that this rejection or opposition originated with a Great Man, whether Jesus or Paul.

The Great Man theory came under scrutiny in the decades after the publication of Carlyle’s lectures. Harsh criticism was voiced by Herbert Spencer, who argued strongly, and derisively, against the idea that it was Great Men who were responsible for world events. Spencer declared that greatness derives not from the personal qualities of great men but from “the long series of complex influences which has produced the race in which he appears, and the social state into which that race has slowly grown.”Footnote ⁹² So-called primitive races cannot, by definition, produce great men. Although he acknowledged that “the great man may modify his nation in its structure and actions,” Spencer also maintained that “before he can re-make his society, his society must make him.”Footnote ⁹³

William James rushed to Carlyle’s defence, or, to be more precise, to the defence of the Great Man theory (he does not mention Carlyle by name). In an article in the Atlantic Monthly (1880), he decries Spencer’s “onslaught on the ‘great-man theory’ of history,” which emphasizes environment above all else.Footnote ⁹⁴ “Can it be,” asks James,

A culinary example brings this point home in a way everyone can understand: “The French say that to have an omelet we must break our eggs; that is, the breaking of eggs is a necessary condition of the omelet. But is it a sufficient condition? Does an omelet appear whenever three eggs are broken?”Footnote ⁹⁶

More damaging to Carlyle’s reputation, however, was Carlyle’s turn to elitism and authoritarianism.Footnote ⁹⁷ Over time, Carlyle increasingly emphasized the role of obedience in hero worship. He came to believe that heroes could see into the eternal and therefore perceive what ballotboxes could not: “the true will of a nation … towards good.”Footnote ⁹⁸ By the mid-1840s, suggests Blair Worden, “Carlyle’s theory of hero-worship, which always had its authoritarian streak, was taken over by it.”Footnote ⁹⁹

The Great Man theory is thoroughly patriarchal and racist. His treatment of the Prophet Muhammad notwithstanding, Carlyle did not seriously entertain the view that a Great Man could emerge from a non-white non-European people, and he was taken to task by Spencer for his slurs about Africans, Jews, Irish Catholics, and Poles, and his support for the Confederacy in the American Civil War, which tarnished both the man and his theory.Footnote ¹⁰⁰

This was surely the pot calling the kettle black. Spencer was part of a “long line of philosophers and scholars to scientifically affirm the association of black with evil, savagery, and brutishness, thus recapitulating the widely held idea that the lighter races are superior to the darker ones.”Footnote ¹⁰¹ Nevertheless, Spencer’s critique hits home. Carlyle’s arguments against Abolition bolstered Southern racism both before and after the Civil War.Footnote ¹⁰² His references to Harpy Jews incapable of any heroism, and his denunciation of Heinrich Heine, for example, as a “slimy and greasy Jew,” and a “filthy, foetid sausage of spoiled victuals” reveal his antisemitism.Footnote ¹⁰³ Carlyle’s legacy suffered a further blow in 1945, when his work was cited by Joseph Goebbels as providing solace to Hitler during his time in his Berlin bunker.Footnote ¹⁰⁴

One might have thought that the Christian versions of The Great Man theory would have gone by the wayside by now, whether due to growing skepticism about “heroic avators”Footnote ¹⁰⁵ or from the knowledge that social change requires many factors and not only the activity of “great” people. And yet, the debate continues. N. T. Wright’s Reference Wright1997 book What Saint Paul Really Said is subtitled: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? Wright’s answer is no, not exactly: Jesus laid the foundation upon which Paul was able to build.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ Gerd Lüdemann’s Paul, the Founder of Christianity (2002) gives Paul a more central role, although Lüdemann is fond neither of Paul nor of Christianity.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ A 2020 edited volume, Who Created Christianity?, is subtitled Fresh Approaches to the Relationship between Paul and Jesus and demonstrates that the Great Man theory is alive and well, at least in some corners of the field.

Few would dispute the greatness of Jesus or Paul or their impact on the development of Christianity, and, indeed, western society, culture, and history. No doubt Renan was right that without Jesus, there would have been no church. One could say the same about Paul. Yet, there is a consensus that Christianity as a fully developed set of institutions, communities, practices, beliefs, and scriptures, cannot be dated to the lifetime of Jesus or Paul. Even those who describe one or both as founders of Christianity do not argue that the church in all its complexities emerged whole cloth in the early to mid-first century. When nineteenth and early twentieth century scholars viewed Jesus and/or Paul as responsible for creating Christianity, what they really meant was that they divorced Christians and Christianity from Jews and Judaism.

Conclusion

In the debate about which great man founded Christianity, we can detect an attempt to resolve a contradiction between the Jewish origins of Jesus and his movement, and the later Christian impulse to differentiate itself from, and proclaim its superiority to, Judaism. By attributing Christian origins to Jesus and/or Paul, theologians could acknowledge the obvious Jewishness of Jesus and, at the same time, date Christianity’s rejection of Judaism to its first heroes. Doing so relieved them of the need to apologize for the supersessionism and anti-Judaism of some aspects of Christian theology and history.

The most pernicious aspect of supersessionism as it pertains to the discussion of Christian origins is the description of Judaism as empty legalism. Christian historians based this view of Judaism on Paul’s assertion in Galatians that no one person can be justified by works of law.Footnote ¹⁰⁸

Although many nineteenth and early twentieth century Christian theologians viewed legalism as “the very definition and the all-sufficient condemnation of Judaism,” few actually studied Jewish sources to determine whether this accusation was warranted.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Rather, what brought legalism to the fore was an apologetic motive on the part of those who sought “the ‘essence’ of Christianity, and therefore its specific difference from Judaism … in the religion of Jesus–his teaching and his personal piety.”Footnote ¹¹⁰

In the twentieth century, historical Jesus research began to delve into Jesus’ own Jewishness, and scholars largely set aside the argument that Jesus was the Great Man who broke with Judaism. Paul’s stance, however, remains controversial. John Barclay asks whether, looking back over the past two millennia, “Paul, in fact, hastened or delayed the ‘parting of the ways’ between the nascent Christian movement and its Jewish matrix.”Footnote ¹¹¹ On the one hand, Paul insisted that gentile adherents should not adhere to Jewish law, thereby suggesting to generations of Christian interpreters that Paul, and therefore Christianity, rejected Judaism entirely. On the other hand, Paul unhesitatingly affirms his own Jewishness without hesitation, providing an opening for proponents of the Paul-within-Judaism perspective to challenge the view that Paul’s mission to the gentiles was also a repudiation of Judaism. In either case, the Great Man approach answered the when, how, and why of Christian origins by asserting: in the earliest decades of the first century, through the activity and theologies of Jesus and/or Paul, who believed in Jesus as the divinely appointed Messiah and the fulfilment of scripture. As to whether Jesus or Paul were repulsed by the sacrifices, circumcision, and other dimensions of Jewish law and practice: these claims sound more like projections of later biases – amply evident in the work of Renan, Bousset, and others – than the views of Jesus or Paul themselves.

Evolution and Religion

Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was translated into German in 1860 by Heinrich Georg Bronn, and into French in 1862 by Clémence Royer. By the 1880s, his ideas were known throughout Great Britain, Europe, and North America, and even those who were opposed to or ignorant of evolutionary theories were using the language of evolution in everyday speech. As Grant Allen, a Canadian thinker and writer, commented in 1888: “ Everybody nowadays talks about evolution. Like electricity, the cholera germ, woman’s rights, the great mining boom, and the Eastern Question, it is “in the air.” … Everybody believes he knows all about it, and discusses it as glibly in his everyday conversation as he discusses the points of racehorses he has never seen.”Footnote ¹²⁴

Evolutionary theory may have been “in the air,” but that did not mean that everyone accepted it. The idea that human beings and apes shared a common ancestry was particularly contentious, and it was both ridiculed and rejected by many. Although a proponent of evolution, Grant Allen took it upon himself to reassure his readers that “we are not descended from men with tails any more than we are descended from Indian elephants. There is no evidence that we have anything in particular more than the remotest fiftieth cousinship with our poor relation the West African gorilla.”Footnote ¹²⁵

Darwin’s theory of evolution left the role of a divine creator ambiguous. For this reason, it appealed (and continues to appeal) to an atheist movement that rejected Christianity.Footnote ¹²⁶ Richard Dawkins, for one, wrote his book The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design in order “to persuade the reader, not just that the Darwinian world-view happens to be true, but that it is the only known theory that could, in principle, solve the mystery of our existence.”Footnote ¹²⁷ Dawkins admitted that it was possible to be an atheist prior to Darwin, but he insisted that it was Darwin who “made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”Footnote ¹²⁸

Charles Gill wrote disdainfully of theologians who allowed their faith to override the gains of science: “Who shall tell us the number of fresh victims, who have since committed mental suicide, in response to the imperious demands of some dogmatic superstition?”Footnote ¹²⁹ Nor did Thomas Huxley mince words: “Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules … But orthodoxy is the Bourbon of the world of thought. It learns not, neither can it forget; and though, at present, bewildered and afraid to move, it is as willing as ever to insist that the first chapter of Genesis contains the beginning and the end of sound science.”Footnote ¹³⁰

Theologians gave as good as they got. In 1912, Jesse Burgess Thomas proclaimed that the theory of evolution was “preposterously unbelievable,” and added that “there is no loophole of escape from absurdity save in that which Jesus alone appealed to – ‘the belief of the truth.’ And the truth is that Christianity, like the Christian, was born ‘from above.’ It was the product not ‘of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.’”Footnote ¹³¹

But there were many theologians and historians who found evolutionary theory, or a variation thereof, to be a useful explanatory framework for understanding the world, and, more specifically, the origins and development of Christianity. By the latter part of the nineteenth century, Darwin’s books had circulated well beyond the circles of naturalists and biologists and had been incorporated into many fields of study. In this same era, the fields of biblical studies and Christian theology were being reconfigured as scientific disciplines. Although this change had begun during the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, it was only in the nineteenth century that the scientific method of historical criticism became central to biblical studies.Footnote ¹³²

Historical criticism at this time was focused largely on text and source criticism, though it was later broadened to include the imperative to examine ancient sources within their ancient contexts. These enterprises, too, were heavily influenced by evolutionary theory. Darwin’s influence is evident in B. H. Streeter’s 1924 book on the origins of the Four Gospels, where he argues that differing conditions give rise to various text types.Footnote ¹³³ By drawing on the field of evolutionary biology, historians and theologians of early Christianity could bolster the claim that their fields were scientific disciplines like biology or chemistry.Footnote ¹³⁴

Writing shortly after the publication of On the Origin of Species, Asa Gray declared that there was no contradiction between Darwin’s evolutionary theory and Christian views about God as creator:

One of the most ardent proponents of an evolutionary approach to Christian origins was Lyman Abbott. In his 1892 book The Evolution of Christianity, Abbot argued that the doctrine of evolution is consistent with revealed religion; religion, like animate species, evolved from lower to higher forms. Abbott knew that he was taking a risk; he hoped that his readers would not judge him to have “abandoned the historic faith of Christendom to become an evolutionist.” Rather, he aimed to show “that the historic faith of Christendom, when stated in the terms of an evolutionary philosophy, is not only preserved, but is so cleansed of pagan thought and feeling, as to be presented in a purer and more powerful form.”Footnote ¹³⁶ His point was not that evolution can be used as an analogy to the development of Christianity, but rather that “the law of progress is the same in both.”Footnote ¹³⁷ In making this claim, Abbott was expressing a modified version of Darwin’s theory by positing that organisms, including human societies, were evolving in a linear fashion from earlier, simpler forms of religious organization to better and “higher” modes, the highest being Christianity.

Abbott refers to Darwin, but he takes Joseph LeConte as his starting point.Footnote ¹³⁸ LeConte argued vigorously that Christ was the fulfillment of the evolutionary ideal:

Abbott begins his analysis with Le Conte’s definition of evolution as “continuous progressive change, according to certain laws, and by means of resident forces.” Religion, on the other hand, can be defined as “the life of God in the soul of man.”Footnote ¹⁴⁰ Abbott’s aim was “to show that the Christian religion is itself an evolution; that is, that this life of God in humanity is one of continuous progressive change, according to certain divine laws, and by means of forces, or a force, resident in humanity.”Footnote ¹⁴¹ He was confident that this approach would help to resolve come perplexing issues about “the Bible, the church, theology, social ethics, and spiritual experience.”Footnote ¹⁴²

Such approaches were bolstered by Spencer’s own articulation of evolutionary theory. Unlike Darwin, Spencer argued that the principles of natural selection, or what he referred to as “survival of the fittest,” caused evolutionary development to progress toward perfection in a roughly linear fashion.Footnote ¹⁴⁴ Spencer’s modification made evolutionary theory more acceptable to British and European sensibilities because it left room for divine creation and other theological claims, including the exalted place of Christianity at the pinnacle of perfection, that had long been accepted truths.Footnote ¹⁴⁵ It was in large measure thanks to Spencer that, as Lightman and Zon comment, “Older ideas that we would expect to be eliminated by evolutionary theory remained embedded in Victorian culture. Teleology, the notion of progressive development from the simple to the complex, and even reworked concepts of the Great Chain of Being [which posited a hierarchy of creation with white, Christian men at the top] continue to be found.”Footnote ¹⁴⁶

The Evolution of Christianity

Numerous books and articles about “the evolution of Christianity” were published between the late 1880s and the 1930s.Footnote ¹⁴⁷ These narratives of Christian origins differed in their details, but they agreed that Christianity originated within and evolved from Judaism. A cornerstone of this view was the incontrovertible fact that the New Testament portrays Jesus himself as Jewish. According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day, presented at the temple, and, with his parents, made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover (Luke 2:21–24; 2:41). In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus upholds Torah observance, at least until the eschaton (Matthew 5:17–20). The Gospel of John has Jesus going up to Jerusalem for the pilgrimage festivals and saying the blessing over bread before feeding the multitudes (John 2:13; 5:1; 7:10; 12:12). Paul insists that Jesus, like the Patriarchs, came from the people Israel (Romans 9:4.) Even Renan, as anti-Jewish a theologian as they come, insists that Jesus was a Jew. Against those who would argue otherwise, he simply states: “Nothing but the folly of men could have raised any doubts on this point.”Footnote ¹⁴⁸

The evolutionary narrative of Christian origins depicted Christianity as a lineal descendant of Judaism that surpassed – superseded – its Jewish origins in every way.Footnote ¹⁴⁹ Lyman Abbott urged his readers to “remember that Judaism and Christianity are the same religion, one in the bud, the other in the blossom.”Footnote ¹⁵⁰ This is not to exclude other influences on Christianity’s development. Abbott viewed Paul, “the last of the Hebrew prophets,” as an essential link in the evolutionary chain in that he translated biblical religion into the Greek language and thought patterns, thereby providing a way in for gentiles.Footnote ¹⁵¹ But many gave Jewish texts and groups pride of place. Charles Gill, for example, singled out the Book of Enoch as well as the Essenes, as described by Josephus and Pliny the Elder, as being particularly important.Footnote ¹⁵² Indeed, Gill believed that the Essenes may have been influenced by Buddhist missionaries to Palestine. Although he concedes that there is no “historic proof” for this contention, “the facts remain indisputable, that antecedent to the Christian era an ascetic sect existed in Judea deeply imbued with opinions identical with the teaching of Buddha, and that these opinions filled an important place in the evolution of Christianity.”Footnote ¹⁵³

Another important proponent of the evolutionary approach to Christian origins was Shirley Jackson Case. In his 1914 account, Case argued that both John the Baptist and Jesus were shaped by Jewish life and thought in the environment in which they grew up.Footnote ¹⁵⁴ Case suggested that, despite the antagonism between Jesus and his opponents, the scribes and Pharisees – the groups that “finally brought about his death”Footnote ¹⁵⁵ – neither Jesus nor Paul denied the “close genetic relationship with Judaism.”Footnote ¹⁵⁶

Case’s description of Judaism as complex and highly diverse foreshadows the consensus that prevails in our own era. Case emphasized that “The popular notion that Judaism in the first century was a uniform system of barren legal observances is not true to facts. Like all real life, it was subject to specific environmental forces, which produced a variety of tendencies even in the realm of religion.”Footnote ¹⁵⁷ He adds: “One who supposes that Judaism in New Testament times was a thoroughly unified system of doctrine, ritual, or conduct must have observed but very superficially the actual conditions of life in that age.”Footnote ¹⁵⁸ Nevertheless, Case argues that it was Jews who took the initiative in breaking with Christianity, because they were perturbed by the “ecstatic” activities of the disciples, and Paul’s claim to have had a “vision experience” of the risen Jesus.Footnote ¹⁵⁹ This breach, however, did not undo the role of Judaism in Christianity’s development.

Adolf von Harnack, like Case, knew very well that ancient Judaism, like Christianity, was not a singular phenomenon. In a 1885 address, he pointed out that “Judaism in the age of Christ and his apostles was a richly composed and multiform picture; … it had many and very varied differences in its shades, which have become highly important for the history of the development of primitive Christianity.”Footnote ¹⁶⁰ This acknowledgement does not undo his supersessionism, but it does raise the question of how a diverse Judaism squares with a narrative that, for the most part, portrays Judaism, as well as Christianity, in singular and essentialized terms.

Not surprisingly, Case and other authors of evolutionary histories of Christianity had their detractors. James Buswell agreed with Case that “Christianity was not produced in a vacuum” and that new facts about the ancient world, and new ideas, can be illuminating. But this “dynamic conception of Christianity” did not change his views. Although each new fact supplements and illuminates what was known before, “the mountain [the grand truth that was Christianity] does not change as we climb higher and our view widens.”Footnote ¹⁶¹

Whether theologians saw Christianity as having evolved out of Judaism or as a departure from Judaism depended on their views about Judaism as such. In an article in the Methodist Review in 1912, Jess Burgess Thomas argues that evolutionary approaches to Christian origins depict Christianity as a “kind of puddingstone –a conglomerate of ethnic traditions worn into shape by environmental stress.”Footnote ¹⁶² In his view, Christianity represented a complete break with Judaism, which, by Jesus’ time, was a severely degraded version of prophetic religion:

By the early twentieth century, therefore, the field was divided between those who saw Christianity as ever evolving as it encountered new influences and entered new environments, and those who insisted that even though it changed over time, Christianity retained a fixed, divinely created essence that distinguished it from its Jewish origins as well as from its Greco–Roman and subsequent environments.

Some tried to have it both ways. Von Harnack, for example, conceded that Christianity’s theological ideas about “God, Jesus, sin, redemption, and life … drew upon the materials acquired in the general process of religious evolution, availing itself of all the forms which these had taken.”Footnote ¹⁶⁴ Nevertheless, he asserted, Christianity was an entirely new religion that “stood out in bold relief from the old religions, and above all from the Jewish.” At the same time, despite “its hard struggle with polytheism, it was organically related to the process of evolution which was at work throughout all religion, upon the eastern and the central coasts of the Mediterranean.”Footnote ¹⁶⁵ Like Abbott and Gill, Harnack’s broader aim was to proclaim the superiority of Christianity, in which “morality advanced to a position of greater purity and security.”Footnote ¹⁶⁶

An Offshoot of Evolutionary Theory: Birthing Metaphors

Adaptation and change could only occur through the process of reproduction, repeated in large populations over aeons. Darwin’s theory of pangenesis posited that every cell of plants and animals throws off “minute granules or atoms, which circulate freely throughout the system, and when supplied with proper nutriment multiply by self-division, subsequently becoming developed into cells like those from which they were derived.”Footnote ¹⁶⁷ He referred to these atoms as gemmules, which were passed along from parents to offspring, often in a dormant state. These gemmules developed into organisms by coming together with other partially developed cells or gemmules.Footnote ¹⁶⁸

For animals, including humankind, the process of reproduction included conception, gestation, and birth. Throughout his Descent of Man, Darwin discusses various aspects of birth and heredity, such as the proportion of male versus female births, in animal species, including human beings. Darwin used the language of birth not only literally, in reference to the process of reproduction, but also metaphorically, to refer to the origins of languages, animal species, and human ethnic and racial groups. In The Descent of Man, for example, he states that “groups of organic beings” are not supplanted “as they have given birth to other and more perfect groups.”Footnote ¹⁶⁹ Later, he notes that “The world, it has often been remarked, appears as if it had long been preparing for the advent of man: and this, in one sense, is strictly true, for he owes his birth to a long line of progenitors.”Footnote ¹⁷⁰

The evolutionary explanations of Christian origins pick up on the metaphorical aspects of birth imagery. In some cases, the metaphor is used in only general terms, as in J. Dominic Crossan’s The Birth of Christianity. Goguel, The Birth of Christianity; Crossan, The Birth of Christianity; Barnett, The Birth of Christianity; Meeks, “Judaism, Hellenism, and the Birth of Christianity.”Footnote ¹⁷¹ Others, however, ran with it. Ernst Renan deployed birth imagery in a particularly graphic way. He pointed out the obvious, namely, that: “Birth without maternity … is an impossibility.” So too the birth of Christianity, the seeds of which were sown by the prophets, and developed (gestated?) in “the messianic school of Judea, whose manifestoes are the Book of Enoch and the Assumption of Moses.”Footnote ¹⁷² Christianity as such, however, arose with the birth of Christ, and was generated by the “white heat” produced in the “passionate outbreak” kindled within “the secret burnings of the Jewish conscience.” Renan digs himself deeper into the sexual metaphor with a rather explicit – and slightly self-conscious – sexual analogy, in which he explained that the birth of Christianity resulted from “a deep implanting of new faculties, the infusion (if I may be allowed the image) of a vital fluid both salutary and essential to the fulness of our life. The act which transmits life, or imparts to it a foreign germ, always a sort of fever. Life, at the birth-hour, is ever wrapped in a veil of mystery.”Footnote ¹⁷³

Evaluating Evolutionary Theories of Christian Origins

Today, we might question whether evolutionary theory truly provided the most appropriate model for understanding Christian origins. The model is appealing insofar as it acknowledges that Christianity emerged due to numerous factors, and not only, or even primarily, the activities of “Great Men.” On the other hand, the focus on a linear development from Judaism to Christianity oversimplifies the evolutionary theories developed by Darwin and others. To be sure, the evolutionary mechanisms described as “natural selection” (Darwin) or “survival of the fittest” (Spencer) imply that the process of evolution, even if messy, gradually moved toward higher forms of plant and animal life. But Darwin was more interested in documenting adaptation and differentiation than in positing a linear movement toward perfection. Nor did Darwin apply evolutionary theory to social entities such as religious movements.Footnote ¹⁷⁹ Others did draw this analogy, however, and such attempts were easily coupled with earlier supersessionist, anti-Jewish and racist hierarchical models such as the Great Chain of Being, in order to situate Christianity at the top of the evolutionary ladder.

The mother–daughter metaphor is apt insofar as it accounts for the Christian adoption of the Jewish scriptures and some essential Jewish ideas and values. But as a description of Christian history, the mother–daughter metaphor has at least one important limitation. Animal reproduction is a cyclical rather than linear process: mothers give birth to daughters who often grow up to become mothers themselves. As applied to Christian origins, however, the process is linear rather than cyclical: Mother Judaism gives birth to daughter Christianity, but Christianity does not go on to give birth to other children. For nineteenth-and twentieth-century Christian theologians and historians, Christianity was the apex of religious development; there was no room for future offspring.

From our first-century perspective, the metaphor is also lacking in that it posits Judaism and Christianity as singular, unified entities that stand in a hierarchical relationship to one another both chronologically and theologically. In its use of singular language, the metaphor sets aside the diversity and complexity of each of these historical movements and their multiple, ever-evolving relationships with one another. The metaphor also has problematic ethical resonances. The image of Judaism as a dying mother is not only contrary to fact – as Case pointed out – but it is also, as noted, both anti-Jewish and supersessionist.

The ethical dimension comes to the fore in von Harnack’s version of the narrative. In The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries (1904–5), von Harnack criticizes those who would argue that “the Gentile church stripped [Judaism] of everything; she took away its sacred book, herself but a transformation of Judaism, she cut off all connection with the parent religion. The daughter first robbed her mother and then repudiated her.”Footnote ¹⁸⁰ Von Harnack suggests, however, that:

For Harnack, the fault lies not with the daughter but with the mother. As a consequence, God removed the mother from the divine plan and replaced her with her daughter. Here, von Harnack expresses the supersessionist perspective that was common among Christian theologians in this era: Christianity took over and transformed Judaism, which, having rejected Jesus, withered into empty legalism, a religion that was still breathing, but just barely.

Conclusion

Evolutionary narratives of Christian origins resembled in outline the stories generated by the Great Man theory. To the questions of when, how, and why Christianity was born, evolutionary stories responded: in the earliest decades of the first century, as a consequence of a linear development from Judaism that allowed Christianity to retain what was good about Judaism and also to surpass it in every way. Whereas the Great Man theory posited a complete and necessary break between Jesus and/or Paul and the Judaism of their time, evolutionary theory acknowledged the similarities between Judaism and Christianity and allowed for some measure of continuity. Nevertheless, the evolutionary narratives, even those that understood how diverse early Judaism was, did not abandon supersessionism. Rather, they viewed Christianity as superior to Judaism, indeed, as the highest form of religious development. In doing so, they were able to acknowledge the Jewish origins of Christianity and, at the same time, maintain a triumphalist view of Christianity’s superiority as a natural consequence of humankind’s evolution toward a greater and higher state of perfection.

The Sibling Metaphor

One such attempt is reflected in the proposal of a kinship analogy – that of siblings – that was less hierarchical than the mother–daughter metaphor. The sibling metaphor was first suggested by Marcel Simon in his 1964 study Verus Israel, which described Judaism and Christianity as brothers who were fighting over their inheritance, that is, the Bible, and the divine covenant.Footnote ¹⁸⁹ The most influential articulation of this theory, however, was Alan Segal’s Reference Segal1986 book Rebecca’s Children, which situated the sibling rivalry not in the New Testament period, but a century or two later.Footnote ¹⁹⁰ In his narrative, the two siblings are rabbinic Judaism and the Christianity of later antiquity. Like Rebecca’s twin sons, Jacob and Esau, rabbinic Judaism and Christianity “were born at the same time and nurtured in the same environment” and, like Jacob and Esau, they fought in the womb (Genesis 25:22–23), competed for their father’s blessing (Genesis 27:1–41), and ultimately followed different paths (Genesis 27:43).Footnote ¹⁹¹

What eventually drove the siblings apart, Segal suggested, were the differences in how they understood their core missions. Judaism was dedicated to keeping the people sacrosanct; Christianity was devoted to evangelization. These differences put the siblings on a collision course that could only be resolved by severing their relationship.Footnote ¹⁹²

Evaluating the Sibling Metaphor

The sibling metaphor is apt in that it conserves the premise of a genetic relationship between Judaism and Christianity: they share a mother – pre-rabbinic Judaism or perhaps the Jewish scriptures – and a father, presumably God. As these twin brothers vie for the birthright, we might ask: which brother is the legitimate heir? In Romans 9:4, Paul stated unequivocally that to the Israelites “belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises” and also the patriarchs, including, presumably, Jacob. Rabbinic Jews would surely have agreed, but Christians nevertheless staked their claim.

The problem with the sibling metaphor is precisely its application of the Jacob and Esau story to the history of Judaism and Christianity. Which sibling is Jacob and which is Esau? And who stole the birthright from whom? If Christianity arose after Judaism, then in this metaphor, it is identified with Jacob, who stole the birthright – the divine covenant? The scriptures? – from Judaism. And if so, this narrative is no less supersessionist than its Great Man and evolutionary predecessors. On the other hand, in Jewish tradition, Jacob, who is renamed Israel in Genesis 32, is the third of three Jewish patriarchs (the others being Abraham and Isaac). And if so, the sibling analogy breaks down altogether.

The Parting of the Ways as Roadway Metaphor

Less than a decade after Segal’s book was published, a new metaphor rose to the fore: the parting of the ways.Footnote ¹⁹³ Structurally, this metaphor is similar to Segal’s sibling metaphor, in that it posits the two closely, perhaps even genetically, related entities – Judaism and Christianity – that branched off from a common progenitor – biblical Israel and second temple Judaism. Where this metaphor differs from the sibling metaphor is in its frame of reference and imagery, which in turn has led the discussion in new and different directions.Footnote ¹⁹⁴

The first to use the roadway metaphor was F. J. Foakes-Jackson, who used The Parting of the Roads as the title of his 1912 book.Footnote ¹⁹⁵ The phrase “parting of the ways” as such first appears as a chapter title in James Parkes’ influential book, The Conflict between Church and Synagogue (1934).Footnote ¹⁹⁶ Almost six decades after Parkes’ book was published, James Dunn adopted the metaphor as his principal heuristic framework for discussing Christian origins.Footnote ¹⁹⁷ Thanks in great measure to Dunn’s own publications, principally The Partings of the Ways between Christianity and Judaism and Their Significance for the Character of Christianity (1991) and the edited volume Jews and Christians: The Parting of the Ways, A.D. 70 to 135: the Second Durham-Tübingen Research Symposium on Earliest Christianity and Judaism (Durham, September 1989), the metaphor spread quickly, and its use remains widespread today.Footnote ¹⁹⁸

The parting of the ways metaphor has its source in everyday life. Judith Lieu thinks of the ways as “poachers’ paths,” imagining “people hacking their way through undergrowth to create paths.” She acknowledges, however, that this interpretation of the metaphor may reflect her own background and context growing up and living in England. She contrasts her interpretation with my own image of the parting of the ways as a multi-lane highway with onramps and exit ramps, which, she believes (correctly!), reflects a life lived in urban centres that are traversed and linked by expressways and superhighways.Footnote ¹⁹⁹ In either case, the image is both vivid and specific, and it can be immediately understood by just about anyone.Footnote ²⁰⁰

The plural “partings” in the title of Dunn’s Reference 60Dunn1991 book refers to his hypothesis that the separation took place in several stages.Footnote ²⁰¹ Although the seeds may have been sown in the time of Jesus, Dunn detects the first parting in the letters of Paul. Neither Jesus nor Paul, however, foresaw or intended this split. The next parting was caused by the first Judean revolt against Rome (66–73 ce), in which Jews expressed their opposition to Rome while Christians fled across the Jordan.Footnote ²⁰² After the Romans crushed the revolt, the Emperor Vespasian instituted a tax, called the Fiscus Iudaicus. The tax was initially applied to all Jews, but in 96, the Emperor Nerva revised it to apply only to “Jews who continued to observe their ancestral customs,” effectively excluding Jewish Christ-confessors who no longer observed Jewish law.Footnote ²⁰³ The most decisive separation, what one might call the final parting, was occasioned by the second Jewish revolt and the defeat of Bar Kochba in 135 ce. After this point, Christianity developed its own institutions and defined itself over against Judaism.Footnote ²⁰⁴

In using the parting metaphor, Dunn applied the concrete image of roadways or pathways to the separation from Judaism that catalyzed Christianity. This application requires him to transpose a spatially linear image – a roadway or roadways that begin, traverse a certain terrain, and then end in particular places – into a chronologically linear image – a historical process that began and ended at a certain time. The metaphor is descriptive in that it portrays a split between two entities, Judaism and Christianity. It is also generative in that it prompts the historian to consider where (or rather, when, in temporal terms) and why the split occurred. Dunn argued that although the way to separation had been paved in the time of Jesus and Paul, the actual parting spanned the first and second revolts, roughly 70–135 ce. The reasons for the parting lay in disagreements over four central theological pillars: monotheism, election, Torah, and Temple.Footnote ²⁰⁵ Throughout the first century and into the second, the Jesus movement began to both question and redefine these pillars in directions that were unacceptable to what Dunn referred to as mainstream Judaism.Footnote ²⁰⁶

Evaluating the Roadway Metaphor

If one accepts the premise, shared by almost all historians of early Christianity, that separation from Judaism was essential to Christian origins, the metaphor is apt. Unlike the kinship metaphors, the parting metaphor is impersonal and therefore more able to avoid the anti-Jewish and supersessionist resonances of earlier origin stories. The most important innovation in Dunn’s narrative is the ascription of mutuality in the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. In his model, Christianity has not superseded Judaism but simply separated from it.

Other resonances of the “parting” metaphor are more problematic.Footnote ²⁰⁷ As we have seen, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians were already aware of the variety in what came to be called early or Second Temple Judaism.Footnote ²⁰⁸ By the time Dunn was writing, the discovery and publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls had already provided further, extensive evidence of early Jewish diversity. Christianity was also understood as a diverse phenomenon, particularly after the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library of ancient gnostic sources in 1945. The writings of the church fathers also testified to the multitude of groups that considered themselves Christian and competed for legitimacy and a following.Footnote ²⁰⁹

In describing a split between two singular, readily identifiable entities, the metaphor has not escaped the tendency of earlier theories to reify, homogenize, and essentialize both Judaism and Christianity. It therefore does not take into account the diversity of both Judaism and Christianity in the early centuries of the Common Era. And yet, as Dunn surely knew, it is not appropriate simply to “speak about two uniform and consistent groups of people who walked together along the same path for a certain time and, from a certain point in history, separated from each other.”Footnote ²¹⁰ Furthermore, in light of Jewish and Christian diversity, a historical narrative that attributes separation to four theological pillars seems too reductionistic to be convincing. Finally, conceptualizing the parting as a singular, well-defined event does not take into account the vast geographical span of the Roman Empire, and the evidence that Christian groups developed in different ways and at different times in different locations within the Empire.Footnote ²¹¹

Dunn came to recognize these problems himself. He continued, however, to view the “parting” metaphor as apt. In his 2015 discussion, he explained:

Dunn also employed other images, including a textile image, in which “the major strand which was to become Christianity pulled apart on a sequence of key issues from the major strand which was to become rabbinic Judaism,”Footnote ²¹³ and fluvial imagery referring to “the various and often conflicting currents of the broad stream of late second Temple Judaism” out of which “two strong currents began to carve out divergent channels for themselves.”Footnote ²¹⁴ But “parting of the ways” remained his principal metaphor, and, indeed, it remains central to the historiography of Christian origins today.Footnote ²¹⁵

Conclusion

Neither Segal nor Dunn explicitly describes their narratives of Christian origins as responses to the Holocaust. Nevertheless, the mutuality implied by the sibling and, especially, the parting of the ways metaphors responds to the post-Holocaust need to develop ways of talking about the Jewish–Christian relationship in antiquity that do not promote supersessionism and anti-Judaism.

The Parting of the Ways as a Relationship Metaphor

These elements – the challenge to accepted binaries, openness to wider, indeed multiple, interpretations, and, especially, critique of earlier views – can readily be seen in the study of Christian origins since the beginning of the twenty-first century. It is evident, for example, in Daniel Boyarin’s dismantling of the borders or boundaries between Judaism and Christianity in antiquity.Footnote ²²⁵ But the most influential critique of Dunn’s roadway metaphor was mounted in the volume edited by Adam Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed, The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (2003), based on conferences held in Oxford (2001) and Princeton (2002).

Unlike Dunn, Becker and Reed viewed the “ways” not as roads or paths but as relationships. In their view, the “parting of the ways” metaphor connoted a rupture – a divorce – between two previously connected parties. The volume does not explicitly reference divorce, but it is implied in the claim that the main criterion for determining when, or, indeed, whether, the ways had parted was not differences over theological “pillars” but rather social contact.

In choosing their provocative title, Becker and Reed did not mean that Jews and Christians never parted ways. Rather, they challenged the narrative that portrayed Judaism and Christianity as two monolithic and homogeneous entities that separated from each other in the late first to early second centuries, never to meet again.Footnote ²²⁶ They concede that a case could be made for a fourth century parting but they did not aim to establish this definitively, arguing that it is “less profitable to debate the exact date of the ‘Parting’ than to question our adherence to a model that prompts us to search for a single turning point that ushered in a global change for all varieties of Judaism and Christianity, in all communities and locales.”Footnote ²²⁷ Their main point is that contacts between Jews and Christians continued long after the ways had supposedly parted according to Dunn’s theory.Footnote ²²⁸ Furthermore, the traditions themselves “remained intertwined long after the Second Temple had had fallen and the dust settled from the Jewish revolts against Rome.”Footnote ²²⁹

Evaluating the Relationship Metaphor

It is surely correct that Jews and Christians maintained social contacts over many centuries, down to the present day. But does the evidence of social contact constitute evidence that the ways “never” parted – or not until the fourth century CE? Perhaps so, but only if one imagines that a rupture of a relationship is like a divorce between two people who have no children, pets, or other shared and ongoing responsibilities. In real life, social contact can and often does continue between parties who have certainly parted ways.

In positing social contact as a criterion, the relationship register of the parting avoids one of the most problematic resonances of the parting of the metaphor’s roadways register: the need to find the “fork in the road” – the definitive point at which the ways parted. But it also misrepresents the roadway hypothesis by asserting that Dunn and others “presume as a matter of course that any post-parting contacts must have been exceptional in nature and polemical in thrust.”Footnote ²³⁰ On the contrary. Dunn and other “early parting” advocates do not at all deny that regular social contact continued.Footnote ²³¹ It is just that they do not use it as a criterion for whether a parting had occurred or not. As Shaye Cohen states, “The notion of ‘the parting of the ways’ does not in the least suggest that Jews and Christians stopped speaking with each other, arguing with each other, and influencing each other … [Mutual reactions] neither prove nor disprove a parting of the ways. They prove only that Jews and Christians continued to speak with each other.”Footnote ²³²

The divorce version of the parting metaphor has proven highly influential.Footnote ²³³ Yet its most enduring effect has not been to eliminate the search for a “fork in the road” but rather to push that fork from the late first to the fourth century and the Christianization of the Roman Empire.Footnote ²³⁴ It has also not entirely eliminated the opposition. There remain those who, on the basis of Roman sources, argue that people who were neither (non-Christ-confessing) Jews nor Christ-confessors may already have seen distinctions between these two groups by the early second century. John Barclay notes that: “No pagan Roman author places ‘Christians’ under the heading of ‘Jews’ or even associated the two groups with one another … [For Romans] The ‘Jews’ are an alien superstition, following an ethnic tradition, the ‘Christians’ are a novel superstition embraced by a criminal cabal.”Footnote ²³⁵ Shaye Cohen points to the changes in the Fiscus Iudaicus, as well as to Roman persecutions of Christians in the second and third centuries, which did not target Jews, and Roman persecutions of Jews (after the Bar Kochba revolt in 135), which did not target Christians. For the Romans, Jews and Christians were distinct groups.Footnote ²³⁶

Barclay and Cohen suggest that if first- and second-century Romans viewed Christians and Jews as belonging to separate groups, perhaps Christians and Jews already saw themselves this way too. This does not mean that Jews and Christians ceased having social contact, nor does it mean that Jews and Christians always avoided each other’s festivals or rituals. It does suggest, however, that these practices and institutions were already or were becoming widely recognized as separate by others.Footnote ²³⁷

This version of the “parting” metaphor breaks down the firm boundaries between Judaism and Christianity that are asserted by earlier narratives. It also resists the idea that Christian–Jewish separation can be understood as a singular linear process with a fixed point of departure. In addition, the metaphor reflects contemporary societies that value or at least tolerate pluralism and multiculturalism. It is also appealing to people living in diverse and open societies where people of different religious, ethnic, and other backgrounds interact freely with one another.

These social factors and attitudes propel scholars toward metaphors of mutuality that describe both Judaism and Christianity as active agents in the process that resulted in their differentiation. The idea that Judaism and Christianity, or Jews and Christians, parted company implies that they were in a symmetrical relationship. Both knew and were concerned with and about the other, and both had agency with respect to their relationships. The evidence, however, does not support this idea. Indeed, there is virtually no evidence for the Jewish response to the Jesus movement or Christianity until the mid-second century, and it is scant thereafter.

The anti-Jewish rhetoric in the New Testament, especially the Gospel of John, and in patristic writings, suggests that Christ-believers were being encouraged to separate from Jews and Judaism by the end of the first or early second century. By contrast, non-Christian Jews did not separate or part from Christians and Christianity. Whereas Jews and gentiles who were also believers in Christ changed or added to the mode of beliefs and practices in which they or their ancestors were raised, Jews who did not believe in Christ did not engage in such change.

The near-absence of references in extant sources raises the possibility that most Jews, whether in the land of Israel or in the Diaspora, were uninterested in and perhaps even unaware of Jesus or the emerging Christian church. The Dead Sea Scrolls are not relevant, as they were written some time before Jesus’ birth. The philosopher Philo, writing in Alexandria in Egypt, shows no awareness of Jesus, though some of his comments are surprisingly amenable to Christian views, for example, on the birth of Jesus of a virgin mother.Footnote ²³⁸ The only first-century references to Jesus in Jewish literature outside the New Testament occur in the writings of the first-century historian Josephus Flavius. In Jewish Antiquities, Josephus refers briefly to James as the brother of Jesus. Even if these were to be confirmed as original to Josephus, they remain minor notes in Josephus’ extensive corpus.Footnote ²³⁹

Rabbinic sources, which are generally dated from the early third century ce to the sixth century and beyond, are similarly sparse. As Shaye Cohen notes, “Given the enormous bulk of rabbinic literature, the paucity of explicit references to Jesus, Christianity and Christians is striking. The rabbis were basically not interested.”Footnote ²⁴⁰ Even Peter Schäfer, who argues that Christianity helped to shape aspects of rabbinic Judaism, noted that: “Jesus is mentioned in the Talmud so sparingly that in relation to the huge quantity of literary production culminating in the Talmud, the Jesus passages can be compared to the proverbial drop in the yam ha-talmud (‘the ocean of the Talmud’).”Footnote ²⁴¹

Of course, the paucity and silence of contemporaneous Jewish sources may not be meaningful, and it is always possible that relevant first-century Jewish sources will surface at some future point in time. But we need to entertain seriously the possibility that this movement was not well-known in the broader Jewish world of the first and early second centuries.

Now, one might object that the Gospels, Acts, and Letters of Paul are Jewish texts that only later became part of the Christian scriptures.Footnote ²⁴² If so, perhaps the views, including anti-Jesus accusations, that they ascribe to Jewish figures and groups can provide insight into how, and to what extent, real Jews responded to the Christological claims about Jesus. But one must keep in mind that the New Testament is not a work of journalism or history but, fundamentally, an expression of faith and theology. Its depiction of Jewish views and behaviours is skewed by its relentless Christological focus. This means that New Testament passages that describe Jewish hostility or even violence toward Jesus, the disciples, or Paul, cannot be taken as historical evidence of Jewish knowledge and feelings about Christianity, nor can they be used as evidence for Jewish persecution of Christianity.Footnote ²⁴³

Jews and Judaism loom large in the New Testament and early Christian writings. But the evidence suggests that Christianity was less important to the development of Judaism than Judaism was to the development of Christianity. As Leonard Rutgers noted, “throughout Antiquity, Judaism was Christianity’s significant other. By contrast, Christianity was not Judaism’s significant other.”Footnote ²⁴⁴ The relationship was not mutual but asymmetrical.

The impact of postmodernism – the critique of accepted binaries and the openness to wider, indeed multiple, of interpretations – can be seen – even when not acknowledged or even recognized – in the attempts of twenty-first century scholars, including the contributors to The Ways that Never Parted, to break down the absolute opposition of Judaism and Christianity that had been established through the centuries and into the modern period. It can also be seen in proposals for new metaphors that might avoid the problematic resonances of the “parting of the ways.” Judith Lieu suggested a variation on the parting metaphor: a “criss-crossing of muddy tracks.”Footnote ²⁴⁵ Daniel Boyarin posits a continuous roadway on which “one could travel, metaphorically, from rabbinic Jew to Christian along a continuum where one hardly would know where one stopped and the other began.”Footnote ²⁴⁶ Tobias Nicklas suggests the metaphor of a “very robust bush without just one long trunk, but with a lot of bigger and smaller, stronger and weaker branches, who not only influence each others’ growing in many ways, but partly blocking each other in their mutual way to catch as much as possible from the sun.”Footnote ²⁴⁷ To date, none of these has caught on, but they reflect the desire to come up with metaphors that express the messiness – the complexity – of early Jewish and Christian identities, and of the process we are calling Christian origins.

Conclusion

The roadway register of the parting metaphor is articulated in a meta-narrative that posits a singular fork in the road at a specific point in time, between the two Jewish revolts against Rome, and attributes the separation to disagreement over key theological concepts and institutions. By contrast, the relationship register of the metaphor does not develop a meta-narrative at all. If anything, it suggests that the parting would have taken place in different ways in different places at different times. The history of Christian origins is therefore best tackled as microhistories focusing on particular locales and eras.Footnote ²⁴⁸

It remains virtually impossible to discuss the history and historiography of Christian origins without using the parting of the ways metaphor. Indeed, this metaphor is so widespread and so readily understood within the field as a shorthand for Jewish–Christian separation that it may in fact be a “dead” metaphor – a metaphor that is so firmly entrenched in everyday language that its metaphorical nature has been forgotten.Footnote ²⁴⁹

Whether dead or alive, the parting of the ways metaphor, in both the roadways and divorce registers, provides a way to talk about Jewish–Christian separation that avoids the anti-Jewish and supersessionist resonances of the Great Man and evolutionary theories. Although the roadway and relations registers of the metaphor are often placed in opposition to each other, they are actually addressing two different dimensions of the Christian origins question. The “roadways” register, as exemplified by Dunn’s books, addresses the separation between Judaism and Christianity as systems of thought – or theologies – that configured the central ideas and symbols in ways that eventually became incompatible. Hence, the need for separation into two different movements involving different institutions, liturgies, practices, and so on. The “divorce” register focuses not on Judaism and Christianity as movements or as systems of thought but on Jews and Christians. The criterion of social contact makes no sense when applied to Judaism and Christianity as abstractions, but it is relevant to interactions and relationships between people who identified as Jewish and/or as Christ-believers.