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MARK ADAM ELLIOTT, The Survivors of Israel: A Reconsideration of the Theology of Pre-Christian Judaism (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2000). Pp. xiv + 760. Paper $50.
New Testament scholars continually seek the appropriate background within which to situate the Jewishness of the Jesus movement. According to Elliott, the prevalent form of Judaism in Jesus' day is that described by such scholars as E. P. Sanders, namely, a Judaism that believes that Israel as a people will be redeemed. Against this background, the belief held by the Jesus movement and the early church that they alone are capable of salvation seems alien. But E. thinks NT scholars have been looking at the wrong type of Judaism.
The "right" type of Judaism is found represented in noncanonical Jewish literature, specifically, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the OT Pseudepigrapha (OTP). These writings are shown by E. to preserve the views of a fringe protest movement in Second Temple Judaism. The movement is comprised of loosely connected and ambiguously defined groups critical of liberal, pro-Hellenistic trends in mainstream Judaism and decidedly anationalistic in their view on the salvation of Israel. Though the texts often differ in...