The Partings of the Ways, by James D. G. Dunn. Trinity Press International, 1991. 368 pp. $29.95

Over the centuries Jews and Christians have prepared a vari-ety of answers to the question: What led the followers of Jesus and the overwhelming majority of Jews to pull apart? Each community has developed explanations that mix fact and fiction, history and legend, theology and mythology. Each community has mapped out interpretations that keep the in-quirer safely confined to the familiar.

James Dunn, Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham (England), has launched a bold investigation in the hopes of unraveling our tangled beginnings. While those who are uninitiated in biblical scholarship may find this expedition difficult to follow, the scope of this venture is breathtaking and well worth the hard work.

The quest that James Dunn has initiated traverses a vast and treacherous landscape. He attempts to trace the evolution in attitudes that drove Christian and Jew down separate paths. The inquiry begins with the claim that "four pillars" -- monotheism, Israel's self-understanding as God's chosen people, the Torah, and the centrality of the Jerusalem Temple -- undergirded the rich diversity of first-century Jewish thought and practice. To account for the split Dunn tries to discern Jesus' attitude toward each of these elements and then to unravel subsequent developments among his followers. The story that Dunn unfolds in comprehensive detail describes how these four categories of Jewish self-definition were first stretched by Jesus and then pushed by his followers beyond the boundaries of rabbinic Judaism.

Dunn guides his readers so that they can better understand why it became so difficult for Jew and Christian to dwell under the same roof. The consequences of this embittered divorce are well documented, even if the reasons for the separation have remained elusive. What most readers may not fully appreciate are the tensions within first-century religious com-munities. Then as now church and synagogue were pulled apart as much by internal as by external divisions. Then as now religious groups were challenged to find unity within diversity. Then as now the stakes could not have been much higher.

Dunn concludes his study by posing questions that are bound to unsettle both Jews and Christians. He asks, "Is it so incon-ceivable for Christians to recognize rabbinic halakhah (law) as at least in principle a legitimate interpretation of the Torah? Is it so inconceivable for Jews to recognize the New Testament writings as at least in principle a legitimate interpretation or extension of the Jewish scriptures? Is it so inconceivable for Jews and Christians to come together to discuss such issues openly, without abandoning their boundaries [p. 254]?" The power of this work resides in the fact that thoughtful readers are apt to answer these questions one way before reading the book and another after.