Work on so-called Jewish Christians has proliferated in recent times, and where in another era articles were more the means by which scholars communicated their views on this much-controverted subject, now books have become relatively common. Petri Luomanen's recent publication, in part the presentation of views already published in articles, reflects this latter trend.

The book divides itself into six chapters. The first two chapters are taken up with the vexed issue of the definition of the term ‘Jewish Christian’ and the history of two of the so-called sects most often associated with that adjective, namely the Nazarenes and the Ebionites. In line with more recent study of Jewish Christianity, Luomanen eschews a too rigid understanding of the term ‘Jewish Christian’, preferring one that takes into account a broad swathe of ‘indicators’ of Jewishness: ‘Overall, the study of indicators of Jewish-Christian profiles is an analytical approach where the “profile”, the summary of “Jewish” and “Christian” components, is the main thing. The terms that are used to characterise this profile are secondary.’ Such an approach to the question of Jewish Christian identity partially answers the concern of some, beholden to more specific definitions of the term, that the so-called Jewish Christian Gospels, being so fragmentary, can only with difficulty be categorised in such a way. An adherence to an idea of indicators, rather than these apparently too rigid definitions, is more sensitive to the variety of ways in which Judaism affected the identities of Christ-believers.

Luomanen's discussion of Ebionites and Nazarenes is clear and relatively concise. He posits the view that the Irenaean Ebionites reflected the views of the earliest community of Christians in Jerusalem and explains the difference between Epiphanius' more involved, and sometimes contradictory, account of the sect, by the, admittedly speculative suggestion, that they represent successors of the Hellenistic ‘poor’ of the early Jerusalem community, perhaps reflected in Stephen's speech in Acts vii, and possibly influenced by the early influx of Samaritan influence (as implied in Epiphanius' account). Luomanen also argues that the Elchasaites had some relationship to the Ebionites (again following Epiphanius) but that their views were influenced by the so-called Book of Elchasai. Much more radically, and in contradistinction to the broad trust that he shows in Epiphanius' account of the Ebionites, Luomanen denies the existence of a Jewish Christian sect called the Nazarenes, arguing strongly for the view that (a) Epiphanius' account reflects an artificial attempt on his part because he required for his account of Jewish category a pure category of the phenomenon; and (b) Jerome's reference to Nazarenes, in particular a Nazarene commentary on Isaiah, gives evidence of a possibly Syriac-speaking form of Catholic Christianity with a strongly anti-Rabbinic profile, a tendency to criticise the Jewish people at large and a pro-Pauline tendency.

In the part of the volume dedicated to study of the Jewish Christian Gospel fragments (essentially chapters iii–v), Luomanen, unsurprisingly, rejects the existence of a Gospel of the Nazarenes. In detailed discussion of some of the fragments of the Gospel of the Ebionites and the Gospel of the Hebrews, he shows how these differ in terms of their profile, especially with regard to Christology and their views of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, and so should not be connected with each other, at least directly. Luomanen associates the Gospel of the Hebrews most closely with the Irenaean Ebionites, and with the Q tradition, at least broadly, and places these Christ-believing individuals in the Syro-Palestinian area. Attempts to argue for a supposedly pre-Synoptic Jewish Christian Gospel, possibly linked to the Gospel of Thomas, is not justified. The tradition represented in the two Jewish Christian Gospels of which there is evidence shows signs of being post-synoptic, and possibly dependent upon pre-Diatessaronic harmonies of the Synoptics. In this view some of the Jewish Christian Gospel traditions examined show signs of the re-Judaization of pre-existing traditions, rather than of being primitive and early versions of such phenomena.

This is a helpful book in that it discusses a swathe of complex material clearly. The detailed character of its argument, especially as this relates to the Jewish Christian gospel fragments, are barely reflected in this brief review and will have to await more expert comment. Some might query Luomanen's preference for a definition of Jewish Christianity based on indicators, especially when he is so keen, apparently, to argue that his reconstituted Syriac-Nazarene Christians are not to be described as Jewish Christian in spite of their strongly Jewish profile (on any reading of Jerome's fragments of their commentary of Isaiah). I have little doubt also that Luomanen's dismissal of Epiphanius' Nazarenes as no more than a helpful construct of the heresiologist to deal with a difficulty will meet with opposition, not least because of the latter's confused understanding of the origins of this group. Luomanen's discussion of the Ebionites, while generally judicious, is less complete than it might have been for its failure to take account of Oskar Skarsaune's recently published views on this group, both as these relate to the name of the Ebionites, the subsequent use of the term, and the very real problems connected with Epiphanius' account of a so-called Gospel of the Ebionites.

But there is much in this volume that stimulates and provokes (in addition to Luomanen's comments on the Nazarenes, we should also note what he says about Origen's presentation of the Ebionites, his account of groups of Syriac-speaking Christians, and some of his discussions of the implications of the fragments that he examines so closely), and it is full of learning and good sense. Those interested in Jewish Christianity will have to take account of this work, whatever their view of its many different theses.