Two areas of interaction have contributed to the essential identity of Christianity from earliest to contemporary times. One relates to an external phenomenon, that is to say, Christianity as an entity encountering something it distinguishes from itself; and the other to an internal phenomenon, relating to an encounter from within which has allowed one group to be dominant The external encounter is between Christianity and Judaism, and the internal encounter is between male and female. Both are named by orthodox voices as the ‘Other’, both raise problems for Christianity today, although the solutions may be diametrically opposed.
There has been growing attention given to anti-Judaism in earliest Christianity, and the contemporary implications of this have been an issue taken up by a number of scholars over die past twenty years. Furthermore, writers such as Charlotte Klein, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and John Gager were also aware that the attitudes of previous generations of scholars reflected anti-Judaism in their work. Charlotte Klein, in particular, noted the pejorative use of phrases such as ‘Spatjudentum’, late Judaism’ which German scholars used to describe the Judaism of Jesus’ day. Today scholars of both Jewish studies and Christian origins would readily describe the same period as early Judaism, understanding that Judaism and Christianity both gained their essential identity during the first century c.e. What were those scholars of past generations telling us about their attitude to the Jewish people of their own day in their use of such a phrase? That Judaism was coming to an end with the advent of Christ? That Judaism should have ended with Christ? That Christianity succeeds Judaism?