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New Publication Wednesday! Just received the printed version of a chapter I wrote entitled "A Long Overdue Farewell: The Purported Jewish Origins of Syriac Christianity." A thread. 1/35 (sorry for length!)
The chapter appears in the now published volume I coedited with Aaron Butts entitled "Jews and Syriac Christians: Intersections across the First Millennium," which attempts to showcase the burgeoning interest in various "intersections" between these communities. 2
As its title suggest, the article, my first major foray into history of scholarship, investigates the genealogy of scholarly interest in the Jewish origins of Syriac Christianity (= SC), a prevalent and persistent claim. 3
The search for SC origins has been more than simply an antiquarian claim; it has fundamentally shaped the the field of early Christianity and our understanding of SC. It is therefore necessary to understand its genealogy, & assess its validity (spoiler: not much validity!). 4
The paper begins by tracing the popularization of the concept of the Jewish origin hypothesis. One would be forgiven for thinking the idea has always existed, but in fact it is of relatively recent vintage. 5
At the turn of the 20th c, a number of scholars specifically positioned SC as a "Semitic" phenomenon, essentializing language, people & culture in ways typical of the period. This did NOT naturally lead to a connection between Jews and SC due some purported Semitic connection. 6
The orientalist W. Wright, whose catalogue of Syriac manuscripts in the @britishmuseum & @Cambridge_Uni are still essential instrumenta, argued that "the literature of Syria is.. not an attractive one..they altogether lacked the poetic fire of the..Older Hebrews & the Arabs..." 7
Others, especially Walter Bauer in his watershed 1934 work, argued that SC "rests on an unmistakably heretical basis," but never mentions Jews or Judaism. Instead, Bauer refers to Marcionites and Bardaisanites, antagonists who feature regularly in the work of Ephrem the Syrian. 8
These two trends continued until the 50s and especially 60s, when there were a few waves and then a flood of works claiming Jewish origin of Syriac Christianity. Why the sudden and dramatic change? 9
The new interest in the Jewish origins of SC emerged as a result of two intersecting developments: The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and reconciliation efforts between Christians & Jews in the wake of the holocaust, especially the six year long Second Vatican Council. 10
The discovery of the Scroll invigorated scholarly interest in the Jewish origins of Christianity more generally. Already in the early 50s, scholars like Frank Moore Cross, among many others, began to trace continuities between the Scrolls and the New Testament. 11
As Jewish origins of Christianity was raging in scholarly literature, the Second Vatican Council issued its final declaration, Nostra Aetate, which, among other things, acknowledged that "the Apostles...as well as most of the early disciples... sprang from the Jewish people." 12
A key figure at the intersection of Christian origins and Jewish-Chrisitan reconciliation efforts was the French Jesuit Jean Daniélou (1905-1974). He served as a peritus, or theological advisor, at the council at the behest of Pope John XXIII. 13
One of Daniélou's works (1957) was given the telling title (in its Eng. T.), "The Dead Sea Scrolls & Primitive Christianity." It includes a section on "The Syriac Church & the Zadokites," in which he argued for a direct link between the Essenes & Aramaic speaking Christianity. 14
Daniélou was followed by many other great Syriacists, including Robert Murray, Arthur Vööbus, & Michael Weitzman. The connections between the Scrolls and Syriac Christianity quickly extended to various other comparisons between Jews and Judaism and Syriac Christianity. 15
As an aside, in a strange twist, the first Dead Sea Scrolls to be discovered were purchased and made public by the Syriac metropolitan and archbishop of Jerusalem, Athanasius Samuel, who drew his own connection between the Scrolls and his own life... 16
But to Daniélou, the Jewish origins of SC was, it seems, a way to accept Jewish origins of SOME Christianities, without extending it to ALL Christianity. 17
Daniélou opposed many of the reconciliatory declarations in Nostra Aetate, arguing "fleshly Israel lost all its privileges, & we have inherited them." Claiming Jewish origins of SC marked the latter as aberrant, distinct from the pristine & pure Western (read:Catholic) Church. 18
Daniélou was in keeping with many works of the time that ascribed Jewish origins to groups to mark them as distinct, even backwards, including Mandaeans, Zoroastrians, but also Christians in Ethiopia and North Africa. 19
Others, however, quickly embraced the fundamental connection between Jews and SC without necessarily accepting Daniélou's theological reflections. 20
A major step in this process was the acceptance of the Jewish origins hypothesis by the (in)famous Jewish scholar Jacob Neusner, who argued "Christianity took root in the Jewries in Edessa and Adiabene." 21
So, what was the basis for the Jewish origins hypothesis? Scholars proffered a few different models & stories, which figured charismatic individual figures & Jewish conversions en masse. In this, they reproduced hagiographical sources like that of the Teaching of Addai. 22
While many scholars are now more skeptical of these stories, I dwell on one narrative that continues to be prominent: that Jews translated the Syriac Peshitta from the Hebrew, and then, or in the process, converted en masse to Syriac Christianity. 23
This argument is based on the fact that the Peshitta is indeed, as scholars now accept, a translation from the Hebrew and not the Greek (later Syriac Christians would update the text to align it more closely with the Greek). Who produced this translation? 24
Michael Weitzman influentially argued that it must have been produced by Jews - who else knew Hebrew - but not any Jews, but rather Jews who were- wait for it- related to the Dead Sea community! How did this text travel from Jewish to Christian hands? Conversion of course! 25
This event has been construed as a mass conversion, in which the Jews of Edessa - attested in some surviving epigraphic evidence and Syriac sources - converted to Christianity, transmitting their Syriac translation of the Hebrew with them. 26
What I argue in the chapter is that there is simply no need for the conversion hypothesis. The text could have travelled in any number of ways. The appeal to conversion is a result of scholarly bias that sees Jews & Christians as solely engaging antagonistically. 27
I note here as well that, even if a few Jews did convert in Edessa and brought the Peshitta with them, did not Jews convert to Christianity across many lands? Even were we to accept this hypothesis, it plays a comparatively oversized influence in discussions of SC... 28
In the next section, I argue that, even though scholars have begun to question aspects of the "Jewish origins" hypothesis and its associated narratives, there are many persistent claims about SC that were founded on it, and whose validity is subject to serious doubt... 29
I dwell in particular on the idea that SC is particularly "ascetic." The primary early scholar to study SC asceticism was Arthur Vööbus, who argued that Syriac Christian asceticism is particularly "Jewish," and even more particularly, related to the DSS. 30
The claim that SC is "especially ascetic" is pervasive, even as scholars use entirely different evidence and arguments to justify it. One of the most difficult parts of the paper was to try & understand what scholars even mean by this characterization. I still don't get it. 31
I note a 2nd argument growing in popularity, namely that the shared origins made the two communities more willing to interact centuries later in Late Antiquity. Needless to say, any supposed shared origins does not suggest communities would share ties centuries later. 32
I end by arguing that the Jewish origins hypothesis is one of the causes for the spatial partition of early Christianity in historical accounts and in disciplines and departments. 33
SC is a separate field, a feather in one's cap rather than an essential part of the early Christian landscape, because it was perceived to be more eastern, more semitic, and yes, more Jewish. 34
I conclude "Recognizing the ways this origin hypothesis constructed, characterized, & segregated SC texts & communities invites us not only to rethink the place of SC in the larger map of early Christianity but suggests that it may be time to redraw the map altogether. 35/fin
Addendum: I benefited greatly from the advice, feedback, and works of a number of scholars in the twitterverse, including @salam_rassi, @AnnetteYReed, @jedwardwalters, & from the fantastic articles of @GregGiven & @terry_renaud ( http://terencerenaud.com/writings/the-jewish-question/)
