Anders Runesson explores the theme of divine judgment through Matthew's text and contemporary Jewish literature. This nuanced discussion of Judaism at the end of the first century has important consequences for understanding Christian origins. Judgment and the wrath of God are prominent themes in Matthew's Gospel. Because judgment is announced not only on the hypocritical but also on those who reject God's messengers - - and because this rejection is implicitly connected with the destruction of Jerusalem - - the Gospel has often been read in terms of God's rejection of Israel. To the contrary, Anders Runesson shows, through careful study of Matthew's composition and comparison with contemporary Jewish literature, that the theme of divine judgment plays very different and distinct roles regarding different groups of Jew (the chosen, the leaders in Jerusalem, the crowds, "this generation"). This important work is essential reading for scholars and students of the New Testament and Matthew's Gospel.

Covering the period from 200 BCE to 600 CE, this book describes important aspects of identity formation processes within early Judaism and Christianity, and shows how negotiations involving issues of ethnicity, stereotyping, purity, commensality, and institution building contributed to the forming of group identities. Over time, some of these Jewish group identities evolved into non-Jewish Christian identities, others into a rabbinic Jewish identity, while yet others remained somewhere in between. The contributors to this volume trace these developments in archaeological remains as well as in texts from the Qumran movement, the New Testament and the reception of Paul's writings, rabbinic literature, and apocryphal and pseudepigraphical writings, such as the Book of Dreams and the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies. The long timespan covered in the volume together with the combined expertise of scholars from various fields make this book a unique contribution to research on group identity, Jewish and Christian identity formation, the Partings-of-the-ways between Judaism and Christianity, and interactions between Jews and Christians.

Despite the recent explosion of research on ancient synagogues, investigators in the field have hitherto been forced to cull relevant evidence from a vast assortment of scholarly publications. This volume gathers for the first time all of the primary source material on the early synagogues up through the Second Century C. E. In the case of literary, epigraphic and papyrological evidence, catalog entries contain the texts in their original language and in English translation. For archaeological remains, entries provide technical descriptions along with plans and photographs. All listings are accompanied by bibliographic citations and interpretative comments. An Introduction frames the current state of synagogue research, while extensive indices and cross-references allow for easy location of specific allusions. An appendix to the catalog contains source materials on Jewish temples outside of Jerusalem.