Abstract
<jats:p>The volume gathers the revised papers presented at the first international conference devoted toreading New Testament texts within Judaism (Palermo, March 2024). Its guiding question concerns howthese writings, when read genetically as Jewish literature, illuminate the networks of Jesus-followersfrom among Jews and Gentiles in the first and second centuries. Rather than simply endorsing thewithin Judaism trend, the volume adopts it as a heuristic framework to test its historical, exegetical, andmethodological consistency, its explanatory power, and its internal coherence. The aim is boththeoretical and experimental: to probe the limits of the paradigm, explore its critical implications, andassess what it accomplishes when applied to specific texts.The discussion opens by addressing key definitional, methodological, and thematic issues: should theJewishness of New Testament writings be presupposed or demonstrated case by case? How shouldJudaism and its boundaries be defined? And can chronological, ethnic, or theological criteriaadequately determine inclusion within? How did the interethnic context of first-century Judaismreshape perceptions of the boundaries between Jews and Gentiles in relation to eschatology andsalvation? And how should the newness of the covenant be understood? The discussion exposes thetension between acknowledging Jewish plurality and maintaining terminological precision, whilehighlighting the role of anachronism and modern scholarly positioning in shaping historicalreconstructions.Attention then turns to the interactions between Jesus-believers and the wider Jewish ethnos, asrefracted in the New Testament texts. The essays focus on ethnic negotiation, Gentile inclusion, and thesociopolitical dynamics of the Greco-Roman world. Some contributions show that the conflicts andpunishments described in New Testament texts reflect intra-Jewish tensions, while others argue thatGentile and Roman perceptions - echoed in the texts themselves - contributed to the gradual socialdifferentiation of Christ-followers from other Jews. These studies emphasize that any reconstruction ofearly Jesus movements must also consider the external gaze: how Roman and pagan observersperceived them, and how Greco-Roman cultural and institutional frameworks shaped their selfunderstanding.Further essays explore how literary form participates in identity construction. The Gospels, letters, andJohns Apocalypse are read as rhetorical and communicative acts articulating distinctive forms of selfdefinition. Attention to genre criticism, especially to the adoption of Greco-Roman forms such as thebios, challenges the adequacy and explanatory scope of a purely intra-Jewish model, calling instead forbroader interpretive frameworks, such as Social Identity Complexity Theory.Studies on worship, messianic faith, and life practices illustrate how even the most polemical orinnovative features can be read as variations within the diverse spectrum of Second Temple Judaismrather than as ruptures, expressing a transformed yet still intra-Jewish imagination.Through this critical engagement with the within Judaism approach as a heuristic rather than apresupposition, the book integrates historical reconstruction, philological analysis, cultural history, andtheoretical reflection, contributing to the ongoing historiographical reassessment of early relationsbetween Jesus followers and (other) Jews, while opening the discussion to the Greco-Roman settingthat shaped their texts, identities, and interactions</jats:p>