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Judaism and Christianity: A Sketch of the Progress of Thought from Old Testament to New Testament (1890) is a book by Crawford Howell Toy.

Abstract

Within the frameworks of sociology, the religionsgeschichte school, and a Darwinian approach to intellectual history Toy attempts to explain why Christianity has become the most sociologically successful (i.e. most universal) religion. Situating Christianity squarely within the diverse Jewish milieu of the second temple period, Toy traces strands of thought from the Old Testament through second temple literature to the New Testament and attempts to show that while the Judaism of the Pharisees continued to become more and more nationalistic, Christianity increasingly became more universal. While it is not always abundantly clear how one current of thought is evolutionarily superior to another, Toy must be credited with a highly critical approach to the literature, not only to the Pseudepigraphic texts, but both to the Old and New Testaments as well. In addition to innovative looks at Christian origins and the historical Jesus, Toy also seems here to be a very early supporter of the idea that Christianity and (Rabbinic) Judaism were parallel developments, both beginning from the same general materials. -- Jason Zurawski, University of Michigan

Editions and translations

Published in London, England: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington (Limited), 1890. First American ed. in Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1890. Reissued in Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1987.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction: On the General Laws of the Advance from National to Universal Religions

• a. The Social Basis of Religion

• b. General Conditions of Religious Progress

• c. The Actual Historical Results

II. The Literature

• a. The Literary Development

• b. The Canons

III. The Doctrine of God

IV. Subordinate Supernatural Beings

V. Man

VI. Ethics

VII. The Kingdom of God

VIII. Eschatology

IX. Relation of Jesus to Christianity

X. Index

External Links

• Google books (full view)