This hefty volume undertakes a comprehensive presentation and analysis of the extant sources on Jewish believers in Jesus in the first six centuries. Sixteen authors from various countries have contributed. After an introductory section in which Oskar Skarsaune lays the necessary groundwork with an discussion of terminology and methods (pp. 3–21) and James Carleton Paget illuminates the difficulties previous scholarship experienced in defining the term ‘Jewish-Christian’ (pp. 22–52), a second part is devoted to ‘Jewish believers in Jesus in the New Testament and related materials’ (pp. 55–238): here the focus is upon the earliest Christian community in Jerusalem and on Paul (the evidence of Paul's letters and of Acts is reviewed separately by D. A. Hagner and R. Hvalvik), but Jewish believers in Rome (R. Hvalvik, pp. 154–78) and Asia Minor (P. Hirschberg, pp. 218–38) are not neglected. A third part presents an extensive and detailed survey of ‘The literary heritage of Jewish believers’ (pp. 241–416): here the Jewish Christian Gospels (C. A. Evans, pp. 241–77), Jewish Christian editions of Old Testaments Pseudepigraphy (T. Elgvin, pp. 278–304), the Pseudo-Clementines (G. Stanton, pp. 305–24) and fragments of Jewish Christian writings in some Greek and Latin Fathers (such as Papias, Hegesippus, Julius Africanus, Origen, Jerome and particularly Justin Martyr) are discussed (O. Skarsaune, pp. 325–416). Part iv deconstructs the ancient reports about two Jewish Christian groups in exhaustive detail with regard to both sources and bibliography: the Ebionites (O. Skarsaune, pp. 419–62) and the Nazoreans (W. Kinzig, pp. 463–87). Whether Cerinth and Elxai are to be considered Jewish Christians is doubtful (G. af Hällström and O. Skarsaune, pp. 488–502). A fifth part explores the ‘evidence for Jewish believers in Christ in Greek and Latin patristic literature’ (O. Skarsaune, pp. 505–67), in Christian Syriac sources (S. Hidal, pp. 568–80), in Christian-Jewish dialogues (L. Lahey, pp. 581–639), in Church orders and liturgical sources (A. Ekenberg, pp. 640–58) and in early rabbinic literature (P. S. Alexander, pp. 659–709). The final chapter of this part of the book considers possible archaeological evidence for Jewish Christian groups in Palestine; the bold hypotheses of B. Bagatti, E. Testa and B. Pixner are presented and briefly discussed (J. F. Strange, pp. 710–41). A sixth and final part concludes the volume with a thoughtful discussion of the history of Jewish believers in Christ in antiquity: how many were there? Where did they live? How close were the contacts between Jews and Christians in antiquity? What was the impact of the Constantinian revolution on Jewish Christians? (O. Skarsaune, pp. 745–81). A very full bibliography (pp. 783–884) and helpful indices are appended.

The comprehensiveness and generally high quality of the individual chapters will ensure that for the foreseeable future this volume will be a work of reference for all those who are seriously interested in ancient Jewish Christianity. It is, surely, high time that J. Daniélou's pioneering treatment is replaced. It would be invidious to single out for praise individual contributions; Skarsaune's ingenious and careful discussion of the fragments of Jewish Christian literature in some Christian authors (ch. xii) provides a good example of the high standard maintained thoughout. Skarsaune and his colleagues assiduously and for the most part successfully try to circumnavigate the many theological, ideological and methodological pitfalls that have beset this topic. In the introduction Skarsaune gives reasons for preferring the term ‘Jewish believers in Jesus' (or, in short, Jewish believers) to the more traditional ‘Jewish Christianity’. The latter term, Skarsaune argues, focused upon (Jewish Christian) theology and praxis rather than on ethnicity. ‘Jewish Christians’ in the traditional sense were ‘those Jews who believed in Jesus, and at the same time continued a wholly Jewish way of life’. Thus scholarship neglected those Jews who became Christians and forsook Jewish custom. Skarsaune wants to include them as well; he is also sensitive to criticism from present-day Jewish believers who feel offended by the term ‘Jewish-Christian’. However, Skarsaune himself is aware that his choice does not solve all the problems: arguably, those Jewish believers whose beliefs and practices were totally assimilated to those of Gentile Christians are not ‘theologically interesting’ (p. 7). As far as I can see Skarsaune does not really answer this objection although he justly points out that the ‘question of ethnicity’ was of great theological importance because ‘seen from the Jewish side, Gentiles who believed in Jesus and Jews who believed in Jesus were perceived – at least by the Jewish leadership – as belonging to quite different categories’ (p. 7). This, however, may have looked different from the Christian side. Moreover, nowadays we are constantly reminded that ‘ethnicity’ itself is a historical category, a ‘construct’, and consequently the term ‘Jew’ or ‘Jewish’ become problematical, too. Skarsaune is very alert to this question (pp. 11–13), and he pays ample attention to D. Boyarin's arguments for denouncing the pre-Constantinion categories of ‘Jews’ and ‘Christians’ as little more than a virtual conspiracy between ‘Christian’ and ‘Jewish’ religious elites (pp. 747f). In the end, however, Skarsaune remains sceptical about ways that for centuries allegedly never really parted, and he confidently asserts that whereas certain borderlines may be blurred, the term ‘Jew’ can be meaningfully applied to the religious landscape of the ancient world: ‘Since the latter part of the Second Temple period, Jews in general have had little doubt about who were Jews and who were not’ (p. 13). Still, Skarsaune's defence of privileging ‘ethnicity’ over against ‘theology’ notwithstanding, the bias of the source material exploited in this volume is heavily in favour of those Jewish believers who retained some of their Jewish religious identity (again a problematical term), i.e. the ‘Jewish Christians’. These are the individuals and groups whose literature (for example the Jewish Christian Gospels), deviant beliefs (the Ebionites, for example, derived Jesus’ messianic identity from his Davidic descent through Joseph) and practices (the Nazoreans, for example, practised circumcision and kept the Sabbath) attracted the interested, inquisitive or suspicious gaze of their Christian contemporaries. Their very existence calls into question exclusivist versions of the religious identities of both Christians and Jews; they seem to indicate lost possibilities of being Jewish and Christian – this is the reason why the scattered information about them to this day arouses learned and educated interest. Those ancient sources that are unaffected by the developing Christian discourse on ‘Jewish Christians’ yield characteristically tenuous testimony: P. Alexander's masterly discussion of the difficult and indirect evidence of the rabbinic sources evokes, on the one hand, the fascinating picture of a rabbinic movement whose missionary drive until the third century aimed at ideological hegemony within Judaism and thus had to confront an alternative, ‘Jewish Christian’ version of Judaism. On the other hand, Alexander suspects, the more open confrontation from the late third century onwards dealt with Gentile rather than Jewish Christianity. The distinction itself being absent from the rabbinical sources, Alexander has to rely on considerations of general plausibility: From a rabbinical perspective, Jewish Christianity, he argues, surely posed a greater danger than Gentile Christianity, because Jews would rather join Jewish than Gentile churches (p. 663).