How Jewish is the New Testament?

David Rudolph, Ph.D.

Modern New Testament scholarship is revisiting its understanding of how the writers of the New Testament understood Jews and Judaism. Since the patristic period, supersessionist interpretation of the New Testament has been widely accepted. Layers of scholarship have been constructed around the premise that a "parting of the ways" between Judaism and Christianity took place during the apostolic era, and that the authors of the New Testament viewed the Church as having replaced or superseded the Jewish people as the people of God.

Twentieth-century scholars began to question these historical and theological assumptions. Significant studies appeared in the last quarter of the century that challenged supersessionism. As a result, today we are seeing a new school of thought emerging within the field of New Testament studies which some refer to as post-supersessionist interpretation. 

There are varieties of post-supersessionist interpretation. Messianic Jewish (MJ) post-supersessionist interpretation maintains that the New Testament writers affirmed (1) God's covenant fidelity to the Jewish people, (2) that Jesus is Israel's Messiah and participates in the unique identity of the God of Israel, (3) that Jesus-believing Gentiles are full members of God's people without becoming Jews, and (4) that Jesus-believing Jews should continue to live as Jews in keeping with Israel's calling to be a distinct and enduring nation. 

The purpose of this website is to track post-supersessionist New Testament scholarship of various kinds and to make it freely available when possible.