The Quarterly Journal of St. Philaret’s Institute

This article explores the methodology for studying Christian worship and how this methodology is related to the Jewish liturgical tradition. The author points out new issues which are compelling scholars to reconsider their previous understandings, given advancements in the study of both early Christian and Jewish liturgical practices. Fundamental to the research in the second half of the 20th century is a thesis about the variability of worship practices and the diversity of regional liturgical traditions. In light of this thesis, scholars posit that there were originally multiple textual versions and liturgical practices characteristic of both Jewish and early Christian worship, rather than a single proto-text underlying groups of liturgical texts. In this regard, J. Heinemann’s dissertation was a pioneering work, though his ideas were only gradually accepted in academic circles. Study of Jewish worship in the second half of the 20th century led to the formation of a comprehensive approach, using not only the methods of form criticism and redaction criticism borrowed from biblical studies, but also the methodological constructs of A. Baumstark and other liturgical scholars. The proto-text hypothesis, however, is supported in the works of Gregory Dix, in the form of a unified structure and common elements for many rites. Historical-liturgical research into early Christian worship in the second half of the 20th c. demonstrates the necessity and potential productivity of comparing early Christian worship with Jewish liturgical practices from the same period. Based on new methodological concepts for analysing data on Jewish worship and Christian liturgical practice, Paul Bradshaw concludes that accepted theories on the nature of interaction and mutual influence between these two liturgical traditions should be reconsidered.