The Rediscovery of Jewish Christianity: From Toland to Baur.

• Author: Reynolds, Benjamin E.
• Position: Book review

The Rediscovery of Jewish Christianity: From Toland to Baur. Edited by F. STANLEY JONES. History of Biblical Studies, vol. 5. Atlanta: SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE, 2012. Pp. xii + 248. $33.95 (paper).

This volume is a collection of essays deriving from the meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature Consultation (now Section) on Jewish Christianity. The volume seeks to refute the general understanding within biblical studies that F. C. Baur began the study of Jewish Christianity. Specific essays and the volume as a whole argue that Baur is dependent in some way on the British Deists John Toland and Thomas Morgan, both of whom wrote over a century before Baur. The Rediscovery of Jewish Christianity thus seeks to revise the common understanding about the roots of "Jewish Christianity."

In the first essay, '"Christian Jews' and 'Jewish Christians': The Jewish Origins of Christianity in English Literature from Elizabeth I to Toland's Nazarensus," Matti Myllykoski traces the earliest use of the terms "Jewish Christian" and "Christian Jews" prior to their use by John Toland and Thomas Morgan. Myllykoski contends that in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the term "Christian Jews" was not used negatively and described Jews who became followers of Jesus within early Christianity. The term "Jewish Christians," however, was negatively used in religious polemic against Catholics and Unitarians. With regard to early Christianity, the term indicated a group "too 'Jewish' to be identified as true Christians" (p. 18). Myllykoski discusses the work of John Selden, who influenced Toland, and concludes that Toland appears to have coined the English phrase "Jewish Christianity."

Pierre Lurbe's essay, "John Toland's Nazarensus and the Original Plan of Christianity," presents Toland as a provocative figure continually stirring up controversy, as seen in Toland's early works, in which he calls into question the New Testament canon. Lurbe draws attention to Toland's use of the Gospel of Barnabas to reconstruct early Christianity and also notes Toland's claim that there were two sorts of Christians, Jews and Gentiles. Lurbe argues that Nazarensus can be understood as an argument for non-conformists.

In "The Invention of Jewish Christianity in John Toland's Nazarensus," Matt Jackson-McCabe highlights the way in which original Christianity is for Toland about faith or an "internal spiritual disposition" (p. 89). Jackson-McCabe contends that in...