[1][2][3] Neusner's application of form criticism—a methodology derived from scholars of the New Testament—to Rabbinic texts was influential, but subject to criticism.

[3] He then attended Harvard University, where he met Harry Austryn Wolfson and first encountered Jewish religious texts.

His work focused on bringing the study of rabbinical text into nonreligious educational institutions and treating them as non-religious documents.

His later detailed studies of Mishnaic law lack the densely footnoted historical approach characteristic of his earlier work.

As a result, these works, focusing on literary form, tend to ignore contemporary external sources and modern scholarship dealing with these issues.

The irony was that his approach adopted the analytic methodology developed by Christian scholars for the New Testament, while denying there was any relationship between the Judeo-Christian corpus and rabbinic works, the latter being treated as isolates detached from their broader historical contexts.

[11][12][4][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] Some were critical of his methodology, and asserted that many of his arguments were circular or attempts to prove "negative assumptions" from a lack of evidence,[11][12][13][15][16] while others concentrated on Neusner's reading and interpretations of Rabbinic texts, finding that his account was forced and inaccurate.

[14][19][20] Neusner's view that the Second Commonwealth Pharisees were a sectarian group centered on "table fellowship" and ritual food purity practices, and lacked interest in wider Jewish moral values or social issues, has been criticized by E. P. Sanders,[16] Solomon Zeitlin[17] and Hyam Maccoby.

[22] Lieberman wrote, in an article circulated before his death and then published posthumously: "...one begins to doubt the credibility of the translator [Neusner].

Lieberman highlights his criticism as being of Neusner's "ignorance of the original languages," which Lieberman claims even Neusner was originally "well aware of" inasmuch as he had previously relied on responsible English renderings of rabbinic sources, e.g., Soncino Press, before later choosing to create his own renderings of rabbinic texts.