The Formation of Christianity in Antioch: A Social Scientific Approach to the Separation between Judaism and Christianity.

The Formation of Christianity in Antioch: A Social Scientific Approach to the Separation between Judaism and Christianity. By Magnus Zetterholm. New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2003. Pp. xiv + 272. Paper, $37.95.

With a focus on Syrian Antioch, Magnes Zetterholm employs methods from the social sciences on migration, acculturation, and social movements in order to explore how a predominantly Gentile Christianity emerged out of the Judean Jesus movement. He does so in a way that is quite self-conscious about method and theory. Yet he asserts an approach which does not hesitate to use the social sciences to go beyond the ancient evidence and "fill in the gaps" (p. 10), rather than merely employing such models in a heuristic manner. Despite the interpretive and methodological hesitations I have regarding this work and some of its conclusions, Zetterholm's experimental approach does provide an interesting angle on how one might imagine the parting of the ways at a particular locale when detailed evidence is lacking. He argues that the parting of the ways, which he finds exemplified in Ignatius' program, was between Jesus-believing Gentiles and Jesus-believing Judeans, rather than Christians and Judeans more generally.

In chapter 2, Zetterholm begins with the setting of Antioch on the Orontes. His main focus here is in sketching a rather dire picture of social conditions and in placing Judeans (he uses the term "Jews" despite his awareness of their status as immigrants) in an ambiguous position. Zetterholm's discussion of the status of the Judeans as a group suggests that "the Jewish community...was considered to be one of many collegia, but at the same time a collegium with rights in many ways beyond those of other collegia" (p. 41). Unfortunately his assertion of the collegium as a model does not draw on any archeological evidence regarding such groups at Antioch or elsewhere.

Chapter 3 provides a picture of religious differentiation within the Jewish community at Antioch. Using social scientific studies on value changes within an immigrant context, Zenerholm draws on meager evidence in order to argue for the existence of four differentiated Judean groups in Antioch: a group of defectors (modelled on the individual case of Antiochus in B.J. 7.46-47); a group of torah-enthusiasts (modelled on the martyrs in 7.51); a group of Greek-speaking, Jesus-believing Judeans (based on Acts); and a group of Hellenistic Judeans. Besides the difficulties in positing differentiated groups, each with a common ideology, from individual cases in problematic sources, one might also question the appropriateness of applying certain modern studies which speak of a distinction between the "religious option" and the "secular option" when studying immigrant acculturation in antiquity. Moreover, Zetterholm's discussions of assimilation, although useful, are limited primarily to the work of M. M. Gordon (from the 1950s). Other more recent work in this area on dissimilation and cultural maintenance may have nuanced the picture.

Zetterholm outlines the evidence for interaction between Jews and Gentiles at Antioch in chapter 4. Fie draws a picture of largely negative relations with the caveat that some Gentiles were attracted to Judaism. He suggests, somewhat oddly, that Jews encouraged such Gentile god-rearers to continue participation in official "pagan" cults (p. 128) in order to avoid unwanted attention from authorities. Zetterholm's assumptions here and elsewhere that both civic and Roman authorities paid close attention to local religious groups and actively monitored them, which becomes the basis of several of Zetterholm's arguments regarding the parting of the ways, is not supported by evidence and seems somewhat out of touch with recent work on the passive-reactive nature of Roman, as well as civic, administration.

Zenerholm then discusses the famous incident between Paul and Peter at Antioch. He argues that the main issue in Peter's withdrawing from meals with Gentiles was not purity (James Dunn), nor a general Judean rule against eating with Gentiles (Philip Esler). Instead, there was a divide forming within the Jesus movement between those who thought that Gentiles were part of the covenant (Paul) and those that thought Gentiles would, in the end, receive salvation despite their position outside of the covenant (James and Peter). The two groups were to eat apart, according to Zenerholm's take on the position of James and Peter. Building on the work of Tomson and Nanos, Zetterholm holds the view that Paul knew--and promoted--the Jerusalem meeting's decision that Gentiles were to refrain from idol-food and certain other Noahide laws (as reflected in Acts 15). This divide between Jesus-believing Gentiles and Jesus-believing Judeans was exacerbated by persecution after the Jewish war in connection with the Jewish tax and, "during the reign of Domitian, there emerged in the Jesus believing Gentile community a leadership that formulated a separate theological program" to respond to these conditions (p. 223). This "social movement" with a consciously implemented ideology based on "rational choice" (the choice to avoid persecution by authorities for not participating within civic cults) resulted in the parting of the ways between Jewish and Gentile Christians, according to Zetterholm.

Philip A. Harland

York University 

Toronto, Ontario