Midrash and the Letter of Barnabas

Abstract

A pseudonymous text of the Jewish Jesus movement of the late first century CE, the letter of Barnabas is a polemical treatise attacking Judaism. Yet the author was also clearly fascinated with Judaism and repeatedly refers to the Hebrew Scriptures in the letter, sometimes in ways that scholars (e.g. Windisch, Prigent, Kraft) have suggested may reflect the ancient Jewish tradition of biblical interpretation known as midrash. In this paper the conclusions of such scholars are tabulated and shown to be tentative. Moreover, it is argued that by demonstrating similar motifs between Barnabas and Jewish midrashic literature (especially the Mishnah), it becomes more plausible to identify midrash in the letter of Barnabas.