Parties in the church of Jerusalem as seen in the Book of Acts

Abstract

" Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860) first impressed students of NT history with the importance of identifying and tracing the influence of groups or parties within the early Church. Baur and his "Tubingen School" sought to interpret the NT against the background of cleavage between Jewish Christianity, led and represented by Peter, and the Gentile Christianity of Paul. Reconciliation between these groups, he believed, was achieved only in the "catholic" church of the second and following centuries.' Subsequent scholarship has abandoned the particulars of Baur's reconstruction. But with varying degrees of emphases, it has followed his example in attempting to understand early Christianity and its literature within a structure characterized by internal division.2 Among recent investigators, S.G.F. Brandon3 remained closest to Baur by retaining the major features of the "Tubingen hypothesis" but substituted James the Just (the relative of Jesus) for Peter as the representative leader and spirit of Jewish Christianity. On the other hand, a number of scholars have argued that Paul's opponents came from outside the Jerusalem Church.' Yet, the notion that James was the leader of the most rigorously legalistic group of early Christianity and a staunch opponent of Paul remains a frequently accepted assumption by many students"