Recent Trends in the Study of Jews and Judaism in Luke-Acts

Division from Jews and Judaism

The first approach evaluates how Luke-Acts participates in identity formation, whether by constructing the identity of Jesus-followers in contradistinction from Jews and Judaism or by framing it within Judaism. In her revised dissertation, M. Smith explores how Acts establishes Christian identity through othering, namely the drawing of boundaries between ‘us and them’, and depicting ‘the Jews’ as the ‘external other’ (2011: 5; Smith italicizes ‘the Jews’ throughout her work, so I do so too in this section). In her view, ‘the Jews are consistently characterized as the stereotypical and synthetic other’ (2011: 58; 57-94). The frequent negative depictions of ‘the Jews’ overwhelm positive portrayals of Jews elsewhere in the narrative. Luke, for M. Smith, paints ‘the Jews’ as one-dimensional, consistently opposed to Paul’s preaching and the Gentile mission. They are stagnant, flat, closed characters (2011: 64, 71-72).

Using Wills’s concept of ‘imperial sociology’ (1991: 635), M. Smith contends that Luke-Acts paints ‘the Jews’ as a threat to the Roman order due to their tendency toward stasis, that is, causing civil disorder through rioting or rebellion. Stasis, in her view, is a central element of Acts’ negative characterization of ‘the Jews’ as ‘other’ (2011: 61-65; cf. Jennings 2017: 171-72). However, M. Smith seems to undercut her own argument by noting that Luke never explicitly accuses ‘the Jews’ as a whole of stasis (2011: 65-66; cf. Wills 1991). As she observes, the only groups or people directly involved in stasis are the Ephesian silversmiths (Acts 19.40) and Paul, who is accused of stasis once (24.5) and causes stasis to erupt twice among Jewish groups, including the ecclesia itself (15.1-2; 23.7, 10). The two instances where Jewish groups are involved in stasis suggest intra-Jewish conflict. If anything, Paul is guiltier of stasis than ‘the Jews’. It is not that Acts simply paints ‘the Jews’ as seditious and Paul as innocent. According to M. Smith, the narrative appears far more complex, though it ultimately works towards constructing ‘the Jews’ as the external other (2011: 61-77).

M. Smith further argues that Luke frames the ecclesia in continuity and discontinuity with Israel and the Jewish people. On the one hand, historical continuity with Israel explains the apostles’ consistent interactions with ‘the Jews’. This explains why Paul repeatedly enters synagogues and preaches to their members. On the other hand, discontinuity establishes ‘the Jews’ as ‘other’ (2011: 59-73). Paul’s threefold ‘turn to the Gentiles’, in particular, establishes a narrative tension in which Christianity both abandons Judaism yet remains in close proximity and dialogue with ‘the Jews’ and the synagogue. The ecclesia remains close to ‘the Jews’ yet separate and fundamentally distinct from them (2011: 8, 59, 80). Aside from the spatial proximity and dialogue, it remains unclear how M. Smith defines and identifies ‘continuity’ and ‘discontinuity’ in the narrative. If ‘discontinuity’ refers to social-distancing from the synagogue, it does not necessarily follow that this establishes the synagogue as pure ‘external other’. The Qumran community relocated away from the rest of Judaism but remained within the bounds of early Judaism (Talmon 1987; Bergsma 2008). Acts also notes that Godfearers are present in the synagogues and that Jewish people repeatedly join the Way. Both the synagogue and the ecclesia are mixed communities. Similarly, the Way continues in Torah observance (Oliver 2013). Due to these two points of overlap, it remains unclear what, aside from belief that Jesus is the messiah, provides the fundamental distinction between the two groups.

The main problem with M. Smith’s assessment is that Luke uses the term ‘the Jews’ more broadly than to refer to opponents of the gentile mission (2011: 61; e.g., Acts 17.17; see Barreto 2010: 73-98; Boesenberg 2016). Members of ‘the Jews’ also join the Way in Acts in response to Paul’s preaching, and Paul turns to the gentiles due to Jewish verbal opposition (Acts 13.45-46; 18.6; cf. 14.2-5). Jewish division and opposition, in other words, precede and precipitate Paul turning to the gentiles. More importantly, no Jewish violence arises from locals in Beroea even when some gentiles join the Way (Acts 17.10-12). Similarly, numerous characters, most notably Paul, in Acts are identified as Jews (e.g., 16.1; 18.2, 24; 21.39; 22.3). The common identity as Jews, along with the repeated familial language used in speeches to Jewish people, challenges the claim that Acts constructs ‘the Jews’ simply as an ‘external other’ (on familial language, see Boesenberg 2016: 61-64). These observations challenge M. Smith’s claim that Luke paints ‘the Jews’ as monolithically opposed to the gentile mission.

Hedlun explores how Acts establishes Christian identity in contrast to Judaism by combining a close reading of the text with ‘sociology of knowledge models’ (2013: 230-32). Instead of exploring identity formation through Luke-Acts’ characterization of the Jewish people, Hedlun examines how Luke redefines core cosmological elements and institutional boundaries of Israel’s religion in order to portray the Jesus movement as ‘a newly emerging society’ (2013: 227, 232). The group’s emergence is most evident in the first seven chapters of Acts, which use ‘legitimation techniques’ to portray this new society as honoring, yet superior to, Israel’s traditional religion and Judaism as a whole (Hedlun 2013: 228-55; cf. Hedrick 2012 and Cowan 2019 on ancient legitimation techniques). In Hedlun’s view, this new society honors yet reinterprets and redefines traditional themes in Israel’s life, such as purity and the temple. In so doing, it poses a threat to traditional Judaism. Acts constructs the early Jesus movement over and against other forms of Judaism, particularly those centered on the temple. This nascent social institution becomes the new arbiter of holiness and scriptural traditions.

Three major issues arise from Hedlun’s work, all of which are common to other studies surveyed here. First, Hedlun does not identify the boundaries of Judaism. As such, it remains unclear why ‘modification and revision’ to Israel’s traditional religious system—another vague term—necessarily constitutes ‘a threat to traditional Judaism’ (Hedlun 2013: 232; cf. D. Smith forthcoming). Other Jewish groups and texts in the first century reinterpreted Israel’s religious symbols yet remain within the contours of pluriform early Judaism (cf. Talmon 1987; Regev 2011: 772-93, 2016: 485-503; Baumgarten 2015: 261-65). Second, given the majority view that dates Luke-Acts post-70 ce, it is unclear why the reinterpretations of the temple and purity in Luke-Acts would be a threat to temple-centered Judaism. After 70 ce, there was no temple-centered Judaism because the temple no longer stood. At this point, basically all Judaism searched for a new center; the Jesus movement is not unique in this regard (see also Wardle 2010 on internecine critiques of the temple in the first century). Third, the biggest weakness in Hedlun’s argument is that, in Acts, priests and Pharisees retain their affiliations with their respective subgroups after joining the Way (e.g., Acts 6.7, 15.1-2, 22.3, 23.6). Participation in this ‘new society’ does not preclude identification with other Jewish subgroups. This point challenges the notion that the Jesus movement is something separate from or other than Judaism according to Acts (cf. Regev 2011: 789-92, 2016: 489-94).

Levine provides one of the strongest reiterations of the perspective that Luke is anti-Jewish. She argues that Luke sees no value in the Jewish religion, that is, the unique practices and beliefs that identified Jews as Jews in antiquity (Levine 2014: 391). In her reading of Luke’s Gospel, Jewish institutions and symbols are rejected, transformed, or transcended: Synagogues are places where Jews (violently) reject Jesus; the temple moves toward irrelevance, as does circumcision; and the Jewish leaders distort and misunderstand Israel’s Scriptures and misapply the Torah. The Scriptures and the Torah remain but only insofar as Jesus interprets and applies them. Even pious Simeon and Anna represent an idealized Israelite past that fades away (Levine 2014: 391-401). In short, Levine argues that ‘Luke separates “Judaism” or “the Jewish religion” from Israel’s Scriptures, history, and ritual. Thus, Luke less separates Jews from Judaism than brackets Jews and Judaism on one side of (salvation) history and Jesus and his proto-Christian followers on the other’ (Levine 2014: 392-93). As with Hedlun, it is unclear why claims to correct interpretation and practice place the Jesus movement outside the bounds of early Judaism. Most subgroups, denominations, or sects claim that their views are correct and that other groups are wrong, at least to some degree (Regev 2011: 772-93, 2016: 485-503; Baumgarten 2015: 261-65). It is not clear what makes Lukan claims to proper understanding of Israel’s traditions based on the authority of Jesus more separatist or condemning than, say, exclusivist claims on Israel’s legacy made by some of the members of the Qumran community (cf. Talmon 1987; Bergsma 2008: 177-79, 187-89).

Particular interpretations aside, Levine’s terminological clarity is a great strength of her essay, especially since clear definitions are somewhat of a rarity in conversations about Luke and Judaism. At the outset, she outlines how she uses the terms ‘Jews’, ‘Jewish religion’, and ‘religion of Israel’ (2014: 390-92). Definitions are critical in the discussion of Jews and Judaism in Luke-Acts since many scholars use the same words in differing ways, even within the same work, without clarification. Transparency like Levine’s helps move the conversation forward. Two terms raise further questions, however. First, it is not clear what Levine means by ‘proto-Christians’. Since Jesus’ followers in Luke’s Gospel are Jewish, it is unclear how Luke can bracket off Jews and Judaism entirely (Levine 2014: 401). In light of studies that highlight the intertwined nature of religion and ethnicity in antiquity (e.g., Stroup 2020), the ethno-religious status of Jewish ‘proto-Christians’ needs clarification. Second, the clean separation between Judaism and the religion of Israel that Levine finds in Luke seems overly simplistic (see also Boyarin 2018 for a problematizing of the category of ‘religion’). For one, it fails to take into account the times when Luke’s Jesus seems to endorse extra-biblical Jewish tradition and practice, even as he rebukes Jewish leaders (e.g., Lk. 5.35; 11.42). Beyond that, Levine’s definition of the ‘religion of Israel’ as a religion ‘determined by the Tanakh or the Septuagint’ (2014: 391-92) neglects the development of the religion of Israel within the Tanakh and the Septuagint. Within this corpus, the religion of Israel essentially morphs into Judaism. By the time one gets to Ezra-Nehemiah, interpretive traditions about the text (Judaism) are becoming inseparable from the text (Israel’s religion), even as various interpretive traditions (Jewish subgroups) will emerge. For this reason, any clear separation between Judaism and Israel’s religion seems tenuous at best.

Another strength of Levine’s essay is her focus ‘primarily on the narrative itself’ (2014: 389). In doing so, Levine wisely circumvents the circular debates about the social location of the author and the audience, the date of Acts, and how these issues inform one’s interpretation of the text (cf. Bauckham 1998). Nevertheless, this strength is not carried out throughout the essay. First, although Levine states in her introduction that she will ‘address only the Gospel text’ (2014: 389), she draws from Acts when convenient for her argument. For example, she contends that the description of the disciples blessing God in the temple at the conclusion of the Gospel (Lk. 24.52-53) ‘is at best a stopgap measure. Their new location is not Jerusalem but the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8; cf. Lk. 24:47)’ (2014: 395). Despite her selective use of Acts, Levine correctly intuits that Acts should provide corroborating evidence for interpreting Luke’s Gospel. Debates about the degree of the unity of Luke and Acts aside, since Acts depicts itself as an extension and continuation of Luke’s Gospel, it should play some role in interpreting the Third Gospel’s view of Jews and Judaism.

Second, although Levine states she will avoid conversations about the social location of the author and audience, she concludes, ‘In Luke’s time, the religion of the Jews was a potential rival’ (2014: 401; emphasis added). This logic reflects the same circular process Levine attempts to avoid: Due to her interpretation of the text, she makes a judgment about the temporal and social location of the author and audience that influences how she interprets the text. As other studies discussed below demonstrate, conversations about the parting(s) of the ways challenge such presumptions about Jewish and Christian rivalries during ‘Luke’s time’. At the very least, these conversations call for more nuanced views on the relationship between Luke and Judaism. Nonetheless, Levine reminds scholars that, although they must locate and frame interpretation of Luke-Acts, they must be cautious of over-determining the relationship between Luke and Judaism based on historical reconstruction. The text should have interpretive priority.

Division among Jews and Judaism

In contrast, several recent studies have reiterated the perspective that Acts participates in intra-Jewish conflict (Boesenberg 2016; Stroup 2020; Jipp 2020; D. Smith forthcoming). They argue that Acts simply distinguishes Jesus-following Jews from other Jews without separating the Way from Judaism and the Jewish people as a whole. The study by Boesenberg represents the counterview to M. Smith and Levine. Boesenberg argues that, instead of separating the Jesus movement from Judaism, Luke presents the Way as a subgroup within Judaism. She explores how the text attributes central aspects of Jewish identity both to ‘the Jews’ and Jesus’ followers. Four pieces of evidence buttress this conclusion. First, Jewish Christ-followers frequently use familial language when speaking to other Jews, Christ-followers and non-Christ-followers alike, and vice versa. Second, the Jesus movement begins as an exclusively Jewish movement, even though loyalty to Jesus constitutes a new boundary marker for this community. Those who do not repent risk being cut-off from the people of Israel. Nevertheless, this threat remains within the bounds of early Jewish exegesis and diversity (Boesenberg 2016: 64-66). Third, although gentiles need not be circumcised to join the Way, the Torah still guides their expected behaviors (cf. Jennings 2017: 140-49). Fourth, Jewish Christ-believers in Acts remain faithful to the Law of Moses (similarly, Oliver 2013; Kinzer 2018: 160-224). In short, Boesenberg argues that ‘Acts presents a group of Jews who have distinguished themselves from other Jews, with the claim that they alone listen to Moses properly’ (2016: 73). Luke legitimates the Way, yet he does so within the bounds of Judaism. The Jesus movement becomes an identifiable subgroup of Judaism but does not separate from it. Boesenberg highlights the importance of factoring in the Jewishness of the portrait of Jesus’ followers and their interactions with the wider Jewish world when evaluating the portrait of Jews and Judaism in Acts.

Stroup also considers the importance of the Jewishness of the Way in Acts in his recently revised dissertation (2020). He examines how Acts constructs Jewish and Christian identity in light of the ways ethnic and civic identity is formed in Greco-Roman material and textual sources. ‘The author of Acts’, Stroup argues,

uses a connection between gods, people, and place to strategically represent Jewish identity as hybrid in order to identify all Jesus followers, both Jews and non-Jews, as Jewish. At the same time, the writer creates an internal distinction between Jesus followers and other Jews, which privileges ‘Christians’ as the members of an ideal, unified Jewish community and contrasts them with what are identified as factious, local Jewish ‘associations’. (2020: 2)

In other words, Acts characterizes all Christ-followers as Jews or Jewish proselytes while also differentiating them from non-Christ-following Jews. Stroup challenges claims that Acts is anti-Jewish, while also acknowledging the ‘incipient supersessionist impulse in the author’s description of Christian origins’ (2020: 2; cf. Jennings 2017: 140-57, 176-78). In so doing, Stroup addresses the text of Acts itself in conversation with Greco-Roman material evidence in a way that takes into account the eventual emergence of gentile Christianity that defined itself over and against Judaism.

Although one might contend with aspects of his argument, Stroup provides a powerful advancement beyond the impasse of reading Acts simply as ‘pro-’ or ‘anti-Jewish’ (see especially 2020: 17-39). Three specific contributions to the conversation about Luke and Judaism merit highlighting. First, due to his use of ‘ethnic reasoning’—‘the rhetoric of peoplehood that ancients used to communicate and convince others about identity’ (2020: 5)—he acknowledges the flexibility of identity. Identity is never a flat category; it is always negotiated and malleable (2020: 3-8, 43-126; cf. Barreto 2010). Stroup thus challenges those who claim that Luke presents Jews and Judaism in a flat or uniform manner (e.g., M. Smith 2011: 71-72). Second, Stroup reminds the reader that ‘religion’ and ‘praxis’ were intertwined with ethnic and civic identity in the ancient Mediterranean world. This observation challenges those who argue that the Jewishness of the Jesus movement can be separated from the Jewish people as a whole in Luke’s writings (e.g., Matthews 2010; Levine 2014). Third, Stroup demonstrates that reading through the lens of ‘imperial sociology’ does not necessitate that Luke denigrates all non-Christ-believing Jews or the Jewish religion as a whole (2020: 71-127; cf. M. Smith 2011: 58-80; Wills 1991). While Acts demeans some Jews and their associations, it does so in order to construct the Christ-believing community as the ideal Jewish community. Reading Acts as legitimating the Way’s place within the Roman Empire does not necessarily require the disparagement of all Jews and Judaism (Stroup 2020: 18-20). With this point, Stroup has challenged one of the strongest arguments that Luke-Acts are anti-Jewish texts.

Jipp’s recent article examines how the Paul of Acts participates in the (re)negotiation of Jewish ancestral custom and self-understanding (Jipp 2020: 68). Like Stroup, Jipp draws from ancient constructions of ethnicity and ancestral custom to inform his interpretations (Jipp 2020: 61-64). Jipp also recognizes that Luke’s Jewish characters—Paul in this case—must factor into evaluations of Luke’s relationship to the Jewish world and its way of life. Paul is a central piece of the puzzle that is Luke’s view of Jews and Judaism. The depiction of Paul, as with most of Luke’s characters (see D. Smith forthcoming), contains more nuance than often acknowledged. The Paul of Acts has his warts. Jipp thus explores how Acts simultaneously emphasizes Paul’s faithfulness to Jewish ancestral custom (2020: 72-73; cf. Oliver 2013) and the perceptions that he ‘is a teacher of apostasy from Moses whose person and message is viewed as a destabilizing threat to the Jewish ancestral way of life’ (Jipp 2020: 67; cf. 61-64). In so doing, he attempts to advance beyond the impasse of reading Acts as simply ‘pro-’ or ‘anti-Jewish’ since the Paul of Acts does not fall neatly into either category.

Jipp’s essay advances the conversation about Luke’s view of Judaism in significant ways, most notably by incorporating the complexities of Acts’ portrait of Paul and his interpretations of Israel’s ancestral traditions into the evaluation of Luke’s relationship to Judaism (2020: 72-78). In particular, Jipp calls interpreters to take seriously that Acts retains Jewish perceptions that Paul and his message destabilize Israel’s life and understanding of faithfulness to their God. If one does not accept Paul’s claims, Paul’s message ‘could be construed as having negative implications for the people of Israel, the Law of Moses, and the sanctity of the Temple’ (2020: 73; emphasis mine). Certainly this is true. However, Acts takes pains to reiterate that these views misconstrue Paul and his message; for Luke, these are misperceptions of Paul (cf. 2020: 72). As such, it is not the text of Acts that considers Paul as a legitimate threat to Jewish ancestral custom. Space constrains Jipp’s ability to unpack what exactly about Paul’s teachings are ‘absurd, dangerous, and inappropriate’ about Paul’s ‘understanding of what constitutes faithfulness to the God of Israel’ for these other Jews (2020: 62). Nevertheless, such lacunae remain.

Likewise, following Matthews (2010: 35-36; discussed below), Jipp acknowledges the serious nature of the exclusivist truth-claims made by Paul in Acts and its role in developing Christian supersessionism (2020: 78). Jipp states that Paul’s interpretation of Israel’s history and hope through the lens of Jesus ‘results in a totalizing and hegemonic appropriation of Israel’s ancestral heritage, customs, and Scriptures’ (2020: 78; emphasis mine). Although Acts makes exclusivist truth claims, whether such claims necessarily entail ‘appropriation’ remains to be demonstrated, especially if Acts participates in intramural Jewish debate (see 2020: 78). The diverse, sectarian nature of early Judaism should give pause to equating ‘totalizing’ or exclusivist views with appropriation or a threat to the wider group. It seems intrinsic to the nature of subgroups or sects that they believe they practice the tradition correctly and that others are concomitantly wrong (cf. Talmon 1987: 601-10). Similarly, that priests remain priests (6.7) and Pharisees retain Pharisaic identity in Acts (15.1-2) suggests that more work is required to clarify the degree to which the claims of Paul and the Way are ‘hegemonic’. Still, Jipp attentively reminds those who would seek to defend Luke as ‘pro-Jewish’to attend to how Acts, especially its main character Paul, lends itself quite well to second- and third-century ‘anti-Jewish’ or ‘supersessionist’ perspectives that emerge as Christianity and Judaism drift further apart (2020: 78; cf. Stroup 2020: 2; Jennings 2017: 176-78).

D. Smith’s revised dissertation further challenges assumptions that Luke constructs Christian identity by completely ‘othering’ Jews. The Third Gospel, D. Smith argues, constructs ‘Christian’ and ‘Jewish’ identities in non-binary ways: ‘the act of differentiation, which is constitutive of identity formation, may involve not only the establishing of distinction from the other but also and importantly connection to the other’ (forthcoming: 28; emphasis original). Identity construction for Luke is not a zero-sum game. Rather, Luke interweaves the identities of his characters within the complex portrait of Israel, the Jewish people as a whole. The disciples reflect and embody Israel’s ongoing struggle with unbelief and unfaithfulness to Jesus. Christians and Jews alike are a mixed bag, and both are called to repentance. As such, the identities of both Jews and Christians are negotiated in and through interaction and conflict with Jesus. On the one hand, then, Luke maintains hope for Israel and seeks to persuade Jews to follow Jesus. On the other hand, Luke instructs Christians about how to respond to Jesus and the non-Christian Jewish ‘other’. Rejecting an oppositional view of identity construction, in D. Smith’s view, moves beyond the ‘pro-’ and ‘anti-Jewish’ categories of prior scholarship and makes better sense of Lukan ambivalence.

Three strengths of D. Smith’s work are worth consideration. First, by challenging binary conceptions of identity construction, he considers Lukan characterization more broadly; Luke’s portrayal of Jews and Judaism includes his portrait of Jesus’ Jewish disciples. Doing so allows for greater nuance in examining the so-called Lukan ambivalence toward the Jewish people in the Third Gospel. Incorporating Luke’s portrait of his Jewish main characters would be fruitful for reexaminations of ‘the Jews’ in Acts. Second, D. Smith clearly outlines and defines most of his preferred terminology. As with Levine, such clarity is rare yet valuable. It enables the reader to follow Smith’s argument better since they know why he uses and how he understands contested terms, even if one might disagree with specifics. Third, although historical questions inform his study and ventures into mirror-reading Luke’s social situation, D. Smith’s examination focuses primarily on the text of the Third Gospel. In particular he allows the parting(s) of the ways conversation—namely, that boundaries between Judaism and Christianity were not in place when Luke wrote his Gospel (cf. Matthews 2010: 7)—to inform his categories and interpretations without allowing historical reconstruction to overwhelm his reading of the text.

Acts as Early (Non-Jewish) Christian Literature

As debates about Luke-Acts and the Jews began to slow, discussions of the parting(s) between Judaism and Christianity began to hit their stride (cf. Becker and Reed 2007). For this reason, only recently have these studies impacted historical interpretation of Luke-Acts. Though largely concerned with rhetoric and characterization, Matthews’s Perfect Martyr is one of the first attempts to locate Acts within the parting(s) of the ways spectrum in its construction of Christian identity vis-à-vis Judaism (2010). Adopting the terminology of Boyarin’s Border Lines (2004), Matthews identifies the author of Acts as an early ‘border agent’ (2010: 7). Specifically, she argues that the martyrdom of Stephen aids in the construction of Christian identity over and against Jewish identity. Stephen’s innocence—and that of early Christianity as a whole—becomes increasingly evident in its juxtaposition with the violence of his executors, the Jews. Simply put, ‘exemplified in the violent murder of Stephen and its connection to the persecuting-Saul-turned-persecuted-Paul, Acts constructs Jewish and Christian identity along a simple binary: to be a nonbelieving Jew is to be an agent of violence; to be a Christian is to suffer’ (2010: 9). Acts provides an early contribution to the distinction and separation between ‘Christianity’ and ‘Judaism’. Since this distinction was in its formative stages, Acts lacked the terminology to fully describe Christians as not-Jews (2010: 7). This terminological insufficiency, according to Matthews, explains why Acts still refers to certain characters, like Aquila, Apollos, and Paul (Acts 18.2, 24; 22.3), as Jews and why the book continually gives positive assessments of Jewish symbols. Acts, therefore, ‘is part of a developing supersessionist rhetoric… It is not participating in an intramural debate—a debate within a fixed set of walls—but rather working to construct a different set of boundaries and borderlines’ (2010: 31-32, emphasis original; cf. Jennings 2017: 176-79).

Two key points undergird Matthews’s reading of Stephen’s martyrdom. First, Matthews assumes and defends ‘a date in the second or third decade of the second century’ for the final form of Acts since ‘the political, social, and ecclesial issues of concern in Acts, and the rhetoric employed to address them, fit more squarely within debates of the third generation of the Jesus movement, rather than the first or second’ (2010: 6; 27-52; cf. Tyson 2006; Pervo 2006). Specifically, Acts reveals its second-century context through its characterization of Jews according to Roman fears about stasis and in the book’s ‘appropriation of Jewish symbols and Scriptures’ (Matthews 2010: 6; cf. Wills 1991). Second, Acts presents an apology to Rome. Legitimizing Christianity to Rome and demonizing the Jews are two sides to the same coin (Matthews 2010: 40; see Cowan 2019 for a critique of readings of Luke-Acts as external legitimation). As noted above, some have challenged the idea that claiming proper understanding of Jewish symbols or apologetics toward Rome necessarily suggests that Acts actively participates in moving the Jesus movement outside the boundaries of Judaism (Boesenberg 2016; Stroup 2020; cf. Wendel 2011).

One of the main issues in Matthews’s work is that her definitions of anti-Judaism and supersessionism remain somewhat unclear. She does not identify the criteria she uses to qualify elements of Acts as supersessionist and anti-Jewish. Matthews seems to assume these terms are self-evident. Of course, this problem is not unique to Matthews. Scholars lack consensus on how to define anti-Judaism and supersessionism, yet rarely clarify the definitions and criteria they use for determining anti-Judaism and supersessionism in a text (Donaldson 2010: 12-28). For example, Matthews argues that the call to conversion in Acts, rather than merely being a call to repent, calls Jews to confess Jesus as the Christ, to cross border lines (2010: 33). It is an exclusivist demand. However, it remains unclear if and why exclusivist claims about Jesus—though they might be classified as hegemonic (Matthews 2010: 32)—are necessarily anti-Jewish or supersessionist given the diversity of early Judaism (cf. Talmon 1987; Bergsma 2008). Matthews presumes that the demand for faith in Christ is incompatible with Judaism in Luke’s time, a point that the parting(s) of the ways conversation has called into question even if a second-century date is granted. Because of this presumption, despite her acknowledgment that ‘Christianity’ and ‘Judaism’ are not discrete groups at this time, she often treats them as fully formed, already-opposed categories in Acts.

In the end, Matthews helpfully advances the conversation about Luke-Acts, Jews, and Judaism by integrating insights from conversations about the parting(s) with examination of narrative identity formation. Matthews also offers one of the few studies on this subject that places Luke-Acts in conversation with parallels from early Christian literature as well as early Jewish literature. She places Luke’s account of Stephen’s martyrdom in conversation with the martyrdom of James in Hegessipus and Josephus and the encounter between James and Paul in the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions (Matthews 2010: 79-98). On the one hand, she argues that Hegesippus, like Acts, depicts the Jews violently in order to construct Christians as peaceful and innocent. On the other hand, the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions and Josephus paint a much more conciliatory portrait of Jewish-Christian relations. In this exploration, Matthews opens the door to further research in reception history or comparison with early Christian literature. This area appears to be a particularly fruitful research trajectory and, as of yet, largely unexplored area that has potential to advance conversations about Luke-Acts and Judaism (cf. Wendel 2011).

Luke-Acts as Early Jewish Literature

Oliver similarly places Luke-Acts in conversation with studies on the parting(s) of the ways in his revised dissertation but reaches the opposite conclusion to Matthews:

If there was no complete and final separation between Judaism and Christianity before the fourth century ce, then certainly the boundaries between the two remained fluid even after the destruction of the temple in 70, the period when Matthew and Luke most likely composed their works. It is therefore misleading and anachronistic to speak of the Jewish ‘background’ or Jewish ‘roots’ when relating early ‘Christian’ (also an anachronism for the first century) texts of the New Testament to the Judaism of that time. From a historical point of view, there is no Jewish background of the New Testament because this literary corpus contains what were originally Jewish documents. (Oliver 2013: 4)

His work, then, essentially constitutes a thought experiment: He attempts to read Luke-Acts (and Matthew) ‘“simply” as Jewish texts’ (Oliver 2013: 4). Before engaging the texts themselves, Oliver helpfully outlines what he means by ‘Jewish texts’. He thus provides robust engagement with issues regarding the boundaries of Jewishness and the variegated nature of early Jewish fidelity to Torah in the first century. After that, he examines problematic terms and sets forth his preferred nomenclature for his study (2013: 5-18). This initial spade-work enables the reader to understand upfront how and why Oliver frames and evaluates the material as he does.

The rest of Oliver’s work explores whether Luke-Acts—in their final form—fit within the diversity of Second Temple Judaism and, therefore, reflect literature from a Jewish subgroup. In doing so, Oliver compares Luke-Acts’ view of the Torah with Matthew’s (since Matthew is traditionally considered to be the most Jewish Gospel). In particular, Oliver examines Sabbath-keeping, kashrut, and circumcision to demonstrate that the halakha of Luke-Acts fits firmly within the variegated landscape of early Judaism. He concludes that there are even instances where Luke-Acts seems more Jewish than Matthew. Oliver’s work demonstrates rigorous, thorough attention to the texts themselves. His exegesis proves quite persuasive. If scholars have moved closer to a consensus that Luke-Acts upholds the Torah for the Jesus movement, Oliver essentially constitutes the culmination of that trend. His work is now the most exhaustive rebuttal to claims that Luke rejects or fundamentally reinterprets the traditional Jewish religious system (e.g., Hedlun 2013; Levine 2014).

Given that Oliver restricts his work to matters of Torah-observance, he unsurprisingly does not attend to the issues surrounding Lukan characterization of the Jews. Though he demonstrates that Luke-Acts are Jewish texts insofar as they uphold the Torah for the early Jesus movement, he does not explore how Luke-Acts portray Jews not counted among Jesus’ followers. His work thus lacks a response to claims that Luke-Acts simultaneously upholds Jewish symbols and rejects the Jewish people. Oliver, in other words, does not rebut the claim that Luke appropriates Torah for the Jesus movement over and against the wider Jewish world (e.g., Levine 2014; Matthews 2010; M. Smith 2011). Nonetheless, Oliver advances the conversation by moving beyond assertions that the author of Luke-Acts was Jewish—though he does make this claim (2013: 31-32)—to arguing that scholars should treat the texts of Luke-Acts as early Jewish literature. Oliver also exhorts interpreters to advance past simple claims that Luke-Acts reflects intra-Jewish polemic to evaluating what strands of early Judaism these texts reflect (2013: 442). This claim allows for potential comparative studies that place Luke-Acts’ portrait of other Jewish groups in conversation with other early Jewish literature.

Böttrich similarly contends that, ‘at the time of its origin, even the Gospel of Luke is nothing other than “a Jewish book among Jewish books”’ (2015: 183, quoting Leo Baeck; translations are my own). The same rings true for Acts. Thus, Böttrich argues that these texts should be treated as early Jewish literature. He replies to two main objections to this view. First, he argues that Luke-Acts’ sharp rhetoric, rather than suggesting hostility towards Jews, demonstrates continued proximity with the greater Jewish world (cf. M. Smith 2011: 57-80). Familial fights, Böttrich claims, always sound worse. Although this is a helpful point, more work must be done to explicate how to differentiate between a familial fight and polemics between opposing groups. Second, recent studies on (semi-)divine figures in Second Temple Judaism and works on NT Christology demonstrate that devotion to Jesus does not preclude Luke-Acts from being considered Jewish literature. Böttrich concludes that even a late first-century date of Acts allows for Luke-Acts to be early Jewish literature (2015: 156-68). He does not engage arguments that would date Acts to the second century, however (e.g., Pervo 2006; Matthews 2010). It is worth exploring, then, whether a second-century date allows for Luke-Acts to be read within Judaism (cf. Matthews 2010; Wendel 2011). Ultimately, Böttrich and Oliver demonstrate the potential fruitfulness for new perspectives that accompany identifying Luke-Acts as Second Temple Jewish literature.