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How New Is the New Testament?: First-Century Judaism and the Emergence of Christianity is unavailable, but you can change that!

What is so new about the New Testament? In this volume, Donald Hagner tackles the issue of how distinct early Christianity was from the first-century Judaism from which it emerged. Hagner counters the current and growing trend in New Testament scholarship of playing down any idea of newness in the New Testament and of viewing the New Testament and Christianity as representing a form of sectarian...

Since the Judaism and Christianity we know and speak of in our day were only in the gradual process of formation in the first century—hence scholars speak of “formative Judaism” and “early Christianity”—the terms are obviously anachronistic in the discussion of our subject, and thus can be more of a hindrance than a help. It is of course clearly wrong to read the content of the fully developed Judaism and Christianity of later centuries into our first-century sources.
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