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When and why the ways of Jews and Christians parted is one of the most debated questions among New Testament scholars. In particular, insights about the pluriformity of early Judaism have set new benchmarks in the last decades.Early Jewish PluriformityIn earlier publications, it became customary to refer to “pharisaic-rabbinic Judaism” (Judaism) around the beginning of the Common Era as “normative Judaism.” Such ideas reflect the ideal of the later rabbis, who tried to date their roots back to the time of Ezra and Nehemiah and …

When and why the ways of Jews and Christians parted is one of the most debated questions among New Testament scholars. In particular, insights about the pluriformity of early Judaism have set new benchmarks in the last decades.Early Jewish PluriformityIn earlier publications, it became customary to refer to “pharisaic-rabbinic Judaism” (Judaism) around the beginning of the Common Era as “normative Judaism.” Such ideas reflect the ideal of the later rabbis, who tried to date their roots back to the time of Ezra and Nehemiah and saw th…

The Hebrew word for the Jewish law is תּוֹרָה/ torah. The Septuagint mostly translates this expression with νόμος/ nomos: 193 times out of 223 references; the closest competitor is νόμιμος/ nomimos, which translates תּוֹרָה six times (Abegg, 2001, 205). Already in the Old Testament the meaning of  torah/nomos  shows a broad variety of possibilities (García Lopez, 1995, 631). Thus, in early Judaism one should not limit the meaning of “Torah” to the Pentateuch (see the critique of Müller, 1996, 258). The same caveat was entered by H. N…