Editorial for vol. 27/1 och Nordisk judaistik - Scandinavian Jewish Studies.This is the first issue of the journal to be published in eight years, marking the relaunch of the journal.

If, as recent scholarly insights suggest, adherence to Jesus was a largely intra-Jewish affair during the first few centuries CE, it increases the likelihood of interaction and exchange of ideas between such Jesus-oriented Jews and Jews of other inclinations. This article argues that the motif of the atoning power of the death of the beloved son – developed within first-century Judaism, as evidenced by Paul and the Gospels, and embraced by Jesus-oriented groups – was later reappropriated by Rabbinic Judaism through interaction with Jesus-oriented groups with a Jewish self-identity, and applied by Rabbinic Jews to Isaac. The presence of the aqedah motif in synagogues from the third to six centuries may testify to the reappropriation by non-Jesus-oriented Jews of the motif of the atoning power of the death of the beloved son, and possibly also to the presence and impact of Jesus-oriented groups or individuals in the synagogue of late antiquity.

This article argues that the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 1.27–72, the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, and the Didascalia Apostolorum – third and fourth century-texts, which combine adherence to Jesus with Jewish law observance – would have made sense to Jews in antiquity as Jewish, although non-rabbinic visions of the history and calling of the people of Israel, and that they ought to be considered as part of the history of Judaism. Recent years have witnessed an emerging trend to reread texts previously regarded as ‘Jewish-Christian’ or ‘heretical Christian’ as Jewish texts, and as evidence of diversity within Judaism in the post-70 period. This understanding emerges from the related insights that rabbinic Judaism was not the only, or even the dominant form of Judaism during the early centuries ce, that there was no definitive early split between a well defined Christianity and an equally well defined Judaism, and that Jewish self-identity in antiquity seems to have allowed for adherence to Jesus as an option within Judaism. Abandoning the practice of using rabbinic Judaism as the sole criterion for defining Jewishness in this time period allows us to see the theologies developed by such Jesus-oriented groups with a Jewish self-identity as profoundly Jewish, although non-rabbinic, visions of the history and calling of biblical Israel.