ABSTRACT
As to the axioms of scholarship, all the rabbinic sources are treated as representatives of a single, seamless world view and as expressions of a simple, essentially united group, either the Jews as a whole, or, among the enlightened, the rabbis as a group. While some more critical souls concede there may have been distinctions between the first-century rabbis' thought and that of those of the fourth, the distinctions make no material difference in accounts of 'the rabbis' and their thought. To the scholars in rabbinical schools and Israeli universities, the critical program of scholarship on early Christianity is perceived from a distance. The author presents Orthodox Jews in Yeshivas, scholarly Jews in rabbinical seminaries and Israeli universities, and the generality of Christian scholars of the New Testament. Stylistic unity so pervasive as to eliminate all traces of individual authorship, even of most preserved sayings, would characterize the writings of the first Christians.
