Reviewed by:

• A Handbook on the Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith ed. by Craig A. Evans and David Mishkin
• Nathan Maroney

“Jesus was a Jew!?” This was the response from a teenager to a recent sermon of mine. Certainly, the public can benefit from a greater understanding of the Jewish roots of Christianity. The same is true in academia as well—a problem that Evans and Mishkin attempt to address in this book. Evans writes from Texas, and Mishkin Israel, as do many of the chapter authors. The editors seek to go beyond merely examining Christianity’s origin out of Judaism to look at how it grew in a specifically Jewish way and how the Second Testament documents can themselves “be understood as Jewish” (p. 1). Mishkin writes in the introduction, “By ‘roots’ we were referring not only to background information but also to an ongoing interconnectedness that remains relevant today” (p. 1). [End Page 613] The book examines both vertical ecumenism (how Judaism is Christianity’s parent religion) and horizontal ecumenism (how the two have interacted throughout history). This horizontal ecumenism is addressed, for instance, in section 4.8 and the entirety of section 5. The volume consists of five sections, with multiple authors contributing articles to each section.

The first section is “Textual Roots.” The book gets off to a bit of a slow start with an article on the Greek manuscripts of the Gospels. While helpful, it does not really relate to the theme of the Jewish roots of the Gospels. The rest of this section explores parallels between the Gospels and the Dead Sea Scrolls and rabbinic literature.

Sections 2–4 examine the Jewish “Intertextual,” “Narrative,” and “Theological” roots of the Gospels. Much of this material examines references to the Hebrew Bible in the Gospels. While this has been much discussed in prior literature, some new research is contributed. Seth Postell’s contribution (article 2.4) particularly stands out. He was a student of the late Hebrew Bible scholar John Sailhamer. With much experience in tracing the reuse of scripture within the Hebrew Bible, Postell examines the Gospel of Matthew and how it traces Moses’ themes in its depiction of Jesus.

Jim R. Sibley includes in his contribution a quote that illustrates the point of noticing such connections, namely, that the concern of the Second Testament’s authors was to demonstrate the essentially Jewish character of Jesus and his mission (p. 275). The Second Testament claims to represent a genre or fulfillment of Judaism; that is, it claims to represent what is true Judaism.

Since the Hebrew Bible is shared by both religions, Christians might not see it as having the same quintessentially Jewish nature as do Jewish texts that are not traditionally read by Christians. As such, the especially useful, unique, and convincing contributions of this volume come from selections interspersed throughout sections 2–4 that examine Gospel parallels with rabbinic and Second Temple literature such as the Pseudepigrapha.

Overall, the book is a helpful reference on the topic of the Jewish roots of Christianity, by scholars from varied backgrounds. [End Page 614]

 审阅者：

• 
  基督教信仰的犹太根源手册编辑。作者：克雷格·埃文斯和大卫·米什金
•  内森·马罗尼

“耶稣是犹太人！？”这是一个青少年对我最近的一次布道的回应。当然，公众可以从对基督教的犹太根源的更深入了解中受益。学术界也是如此——埃文斯和米什金试图在本书中解决这个问题。埃文斯和许多章节作者一样，来自德克萨斯州和米什金以色列。编辑们试图超越仅仅考察基督教从犹太教的起源，而是研究它如何以特定的犹太方式发展，以及《第二约》文献本身如何“被理解为犹太教”（第 1 页）。米什金在引言中写道，“我们所说的‘根源’不仅指背景信息，还指当今仍然具有现实意义的持续相互联系”（第 1 页）。 [完第613页]本书探讨了纵向普世主义（犹太教如何成为基督教的母宗教）和横向普世主义（两者在历史上如何相互作用）。例如，第 4.8 节和整个第 5 节讨论了这种横向普世主义。本书由五个部分组成，每个部分都有多名作者撰写文章。

第一部分是“文本根源”。这本书以一篇关于福音书的希腊手稿的文章开始，有点缓慢。虽然有帮助，但它与福音书的犹太根源主题并不真正相关。本节的其余部分探讨了福音书和死海古卷以及拉比文学之间的相似之处。

第 2-4 节考察了福音书的犹太“互文”、“叙事”和“神学”根源。这些材料的大部分内容都考察了福音书中对希伯来圣经的引用。虽然之前的文献对此进行了很多讨论，但仍贡献了一些新的研究。 Seth Postell 的贡献（第 2.4 条）尤其引人注目。他是已故希伯来圣经学者约翰·赛哈默的学生。波斯特尔在追溯希伯来圣经中经文的重用方面拥有丰富的经验，他研究了马太福音以及它如何在描述耶稣时追溯摩西的主题。

吉姆·R·西布利（Jim R. Sibley）在他的贡献中引用了一句话，说明了注意到这种联系的要点，即《第二约》作者的关注点是展示耶稣本质上的犹太性格及其使命（第 275 页）。 《第二约》声称代表了犹太教的一种流派或实现；也就是说，它声称代表真正的犹太教。

由于希伯来圣经为两种宗教所共有，基督徒可能不会认为它具有与传统上基督徒不阅读的犹太文本相同的典型犹太性质。因此，本书特别有用、独特和令人信服的贡献来自于散布在第 2 至第 4 节中的选集，这些节选考察了福音书与拉比和第二圣殿文学（例如《伪书》）的相似之处。

总体而言，这本书是来自不同背景的学者关于基督教的犹太根源这一主题的有用参考。 [完第614页]