A New Beginning and the Final Division

The years following Jesus until the death of the last of the Twelve Apostles,  the Christian Church came fully into being on Pentecost when, according to scriptural accounts, the apostles received the Holy Spirit and emerged from hiding following the death and resurrection of Jesus to preach and spread his message. The apostolic period produced writings attributed to the direct followers of Jesus Christ and is traditionally associated with the apostles and apostolic times. This age is the foundation upon which the entire church’s history is founded. This Apostolic Church, also called the “Primitive Church”, was the community led by Jesus’ apostles and, it would seem, his relatives. Shortly after the death and resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, the Jerusalem church was founded as the first Christian church with about 120 Jews and Jewish Proselytes (Acts  1:15), at Pentecost. The Christian community in Jerusalem, where Jesus, many of the twelve Apostles and many eye-witnesses originally lived, had a special position among Christian communities. It experienced conflict and persecution especially in the years 32-33 and 62-63 highlighted by the stoning of Stephen and the death of the James.

Today, New Testament scholars agree that there is a special position to Peter among the Twelve. The official Catholic Church position is that Jesus had essentially appointed Peter as the first Pope, with authority over the entire Church. This is derived from his seeming primacy among the Twelve in New Testament texts on Peter, namely Matthew  16:17-19, Luke  22:32, and John  21:15-17. It is also noteworthy that there are two Apostolic (and Patriarchal) sees that are claimed to have been founded by Peter: the Diocese of Antioch and the Diocese of Rome.

The Christian Church built its identity on the Apostles as witnesses to Christ, and responsibility for pastoral leadership was not restricted to Peter. The New Testament also does not contain any record of the transmission of Peter’s leadership, nor is the transmission of apostolic authority in general very clear. As a result, the New Testament texts on Peter have been subjected to differing interpretations from the time of the Church Fathers on.

Earliest Christianity took the form of a Jewish eschatological faith. The book of Acts reports that the early followers continued daily Temple attendance and traditional Jewish home prayer. Other passages in the New Testament gospels reflect a similar observance of traditional Jewish piety such as fasting, reverence for the Torah and observance of Jewish holy days. The earliest form of Jesus’s religion is best understood in this context. At first, Christians continued to worship alongside Jewish believers, but within twenty years of Jesus’s death, Sunday (the Lord’s Day) was being regarded as the primary day of worship.

The Biblical canon began with the Jewish Scriptures, first available in Koine Greek translation, then as Aramaic Targums. In the 2nd century, Melito of Sardis called these Scriptures the “Old Testament“, and specified an early canon. The Greek translation, later known as the “Septuagint” (LXX), arouse from Hellenistic Judaism which predates Christianity. Also significant was the Aramaic speaking church in Syria, which used the Targums and developed the Peshitta. Perhaps the earliest Christian canon is the Bryennios List which was found by Philotheos Bryennios in the Codex Hierosolymitanus. The list is written in Koine Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew and dated to around 100 by J. P. Audet. It consists of a 27-book canon which comprises:

“ Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Jesus Nave [title Jesus Nave for the Book of Joshua is distinctly Christian] , Deuteronomy, Numbers, Judges, Ruth, 4 of Kings (Samuel and Kings), 2 of Chronicles, 2 of Esdras, Esther, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Job, Minor prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel”.

The “New Testament” (often compared to the New Covenant) is the name given to the second major division of the Christian Bible, either by Tertullian or Marcion in the 2nd century. The original texts were written by various authors, most likely sometime after c. AD 45 in Koine Greek, the lingua franca of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, though there is also a minority argument for Aramaic primacy.

The common languages spoken by both Jews and Gentiles in the Holy Land at the time of Jesus were Aramaic, Koine Greek, and to a limited extent a colloquial dialect of Mishnaic Hebrew. It is generally believed that the original text of the New Testament was written in Koine Greek, the vernacular dialect in 1st century Roman provinces of the Eastern Mediterranean, and later translated into other languages, most notably, Latin, Syriac, and Coptic. However, some of the Church Fathers seem to imply that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic, and there is another contention that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews wrote in Hebrew, which was translated into Greek by Luke. Neither view holds much support among contemporary scholars, who argue that the literary facets of Matthew and Hebrews suggest that they were composed directly in Greek, rather than being translated, a view known as Greek primacy.

Early Christianity retained some of the doctrines and practices of first-century Judaism while rejecting others. They held the Jewish scriptures to be authoritative and sacred, employing mostly the Septuagint or Targum translations, later called the Old Testament, a term associated with Supersessionism, and added other texts as the New Testament canon developed. Christianity also continued other Judaic practices: baptism, liturgical worship, including the use of incense, an altar, a set of scriptural readings adapted from synagogue practice, use of sacred music in hymns and prayer, and a religious calendar, as well as other distinctive features such as an exclusively male priesthood, and ascetic practices (fasting etc.). Circumcision was rejected as a requirement at the Council of Jerusalem, c. 50, though the decree of the council parallels Jewish Noahide Law. Sabbath observance was modified, perhaps as early as Ignatius’ Epistle to the Magnesians 9.1. Quartodecimanism (observation of the Paschal feast on Nisan 14, the day of preparation for Passover, linked to Polycarp and thus to John the Apostle) was formally rejected at the First Council of Nicaea.

An early difficulty arose concerning the matter of Gentile (non-Jewish) converts as to whether they had to “become Jewish,” in following circumcision and dietary laws, as part of becoming Christian. Circumcision was considered repulsive during the period of Hellenization of the Eastern Mediterranean. The decision of Peter, as evidenced by conversion of the Centurion Cornelius, was that they did not, and the matter was further addressed with the Council of Jerusalem. Around this same time period, Rabbinic Judaism made their circumcision requirement even stricter.

The doctrines of the apostles brought the Early Church into conflict with some Jewish religious authorities. Late first century developments attributed to the Council of Jamnia eventually led to Christian’s expulsion from synagogues.

The Desposyni (relatives of Jesus) lived in Nazareth during the first century. The relatives of Jesus were accorded a special position within the early church, as displayed by the leadership of James the Just in Jerusalem. In or around the year 50, the apostles convened the first church council, known as the Council of Jerusalem, to reconcile practical (and by implication doctrinal) differences concerning the Gentile mission. While not numbered among them, this council has often been looked to as both “ecumenical” and the model for later ecumenical councils.

At the Council of Jerusalem it was agreed that gentiles could be accepted as Christians without full adherence to the Mosaic Laws, possibly a major break between Christianity and Judaism (the first being the Rejection of Jesus), though the decree of the council (Acts 15:19-29) . The Council of Jerusalem, according to Acts 15, determined that circumcision was not required of Gentile converts, only avoidance of “pollution of idols, fornication, things strangled, and blood” (KJV, Acts 15:20), establishing nascent Christianity as an attractive alternative to Judaism for prospective Proselytes. The Twelve Apostles and the Apostolic Fathers initiated the process of integration of the originally Jewish sect (outlawed as religio illicita since the 80s, assuming they didn’t pay the Fiscus Judaicus) into a more Hellenistic religion.

There was a slowly growing chasm between Christians and Jews, rather than a sudden split. Even though it is commonly thought that Paul established a Gentile church, it took centuries for a complete break to manifest. However, certain events are perceived as pivotal in the growing rift between Christianity and Judaism. The Council of Jamnia circa 85 is often stated to have condemned all who claimed the Messiah had already come, and Christianity in particular. However, the formulated prayer in question (birkat ha-minim) is considered by other scholars to be unremarkable in the history of Jewish and Christian relations. There is a paucity of evidence for Jewish persecution of “heretics” in general, or Christians in particular, in the period between 70 and 135. It is probable that the condemnation of Jamnia included many groups, of which the Christians were but one, and did not necessarily mean excommunication. That some of the later church fathers only recommended against synagogue attendance makes it improbable that an anti-Christian prayer was a common part of the synagogue liturgy. Jewish Christians continued to worship in synagogues for centuries

The destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70, seen as symbolic by Supersessionism, and the consequent dispersion of Jews and Jewish Christians from this city (after the Bar Kokhba revolt), ended any pre-eminence of the Jewish-Christian leadership in Jerusalem (see Bishops of Aelia Capitolina and Jerusalem in Christianity). Although Epiphanius of Salamis reported that the Cenacle itself survived at least to Hadrian’s visit in 130, some today think it merely rebuilt shortly after this first Jewish war. Early Christianity grew further apart from Judaism to establish itself as a predominantly gentile religion, and Antioch became the first Gentile Christian community with stature.

The destruction of the Temple did not mean the end of Judaism, however. The theological and religious crisis it caused seems to have been much less severe than that experienced in the aftermath of the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE, perhaps because the Judaism of the Second Temple period had created new institutions and ideologies that prepared it for a time when the Temple and the sacrificial cult would no longer exist. By the time the Second Temple was destroyed, the Temple itself had been supplemented by synagogues, the priests had been supplemented by scholars, the sacrificial cult had been supplemented by prayer, and the study of the Torah—along with the reliance on the intermediation of the Temple priesthood—had been supplemented by a piety that emphasized the observance of the commandments of the Torah by every Jew.

In short, the path to the future was already clearly marked. The sufferings of this world would be compensated by rewards in the hereafter. The disgrace of seeing Rome triumph over the God of Israel and destroy the Temple would be effaced by the glory of the new kingdom that God would establish for his people in the end time. The cessation of the sacrificial cult did not mean estrangement from God, since God could be worshiped through good deeds, prayer, the observance of the commandments and the study of the Torah. Synagogues could take the place of the Temple, and rabbis could take the place of the priests. These were the responses of the Jews to the catastrophe of 70 CE, and they were greatly elaborated during the following centuries.

For all of the destruction caused by the events of 70 CE, in many important respects the post-70 CE period does not mark a radical break with the past. But in other respects the post-70 CE period is discontinuous with the past. The period from the Maccabees to the destruction of the Temple was marked by religious and social ferment, but after 70 CE the ferment all but disappeared. Within a generation the Jews ceased to write (or at least ceased to preserve) apocalypses, and they desisted from making detailed speculations about God’s control of human events in the present and the future. The Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Sicarii and Zealots are no longer living realities in Jewish society. They are mentioned by sources of the second and third centuries only as figures of the Second Temple period. Instead of sectarian diversity, the post-70 CE period is characterized by a peculiar homogeneity. The only group to appear in our documentation is that of the rabbis, as a result of which the post-70 CE period is often called the rabbinic period.

The origins of the rabbinic group are most obscure. They were led by Rabban Gamaliel, a scion of a prominent Pharisaic family, a fact that implies that the heirs of the Pharisees of the Second Temple period were the dominant element in this new group. Various features shared by the Pharisees and the rabbis also imply some intimate link between them, but there is no indication that all Pharisees became rabbis or that all rabbis were the descendants of Pharisees.

The absence of other organized groups does not, of course, mean that all Jews everywhere instantly became pious followers of the rabbis. The contrary was the case. In Second Temple times most Jews did not belong to any sect or group, but were content to serve God in their own way. This pattern continued in the rabbinic period as well, as the rabbinic texts themselves make abundantly clear. But in the end, the masses recognized the rabbis as the leaders and shapers of Judaism. The rabbis were heirs to the legacy of Second Temple Judaism, but through their distinctive literature and patterns of religion they gave Judaism a new form of expression that would endure to our own day. The destruction of the Temple thus marked not only an end but also a beginning.

Council of Jamnia

After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai relocated to the city of Yavne/Jamnia and founded a school of Jewish law there, becoming a major source for the later Mishna. His school is often understood as a wellspring of Rabbinic Judaism. The Council of Yavne or Council of Jamnia refers to a hypothetical Proto-Rabbinic council under Yohanan’s leadership, that was responsible for defining the canon of the Hebrew Bible.

Speculation regarding a “Council of Jamnia”

Heinrich Graetz introduced the notion in 1871; based on Mishnaic and Talmudic sources, he concluded that there had been a Council of Jamnia which had decided the Jewish canon sometime in the late 1st century. This became the prevailing scholarly consensus for much of the 20th century. However, from the 1960s onwards, based on the work of Jack P. Lewis, S.Z. Leiman, and others, this view came increasingly into question. In particular, later scholars noted that none of the sources actually mentioned books that had been withdrawn from a canon, and questioned the whole premise that the discussions were about canonicity at all, asserting that they were actually dealing with other concerns entirely.

Lewis writes in The Anchor Bible Dictionary Vol. III, pp. 634-7 (New York 1992):

The concept of the Council of Jamnia is an hypothesis to explain the canonization of the Writings (the third division of the Hebrew Bible) resulting in the closing of the Hebrew canon. … These ongoing debates suggest the paucity of evidence on which the hypothesis of the Council of Jamnia rests and raise the question whether it has not served its usefulness and should be relegated to the limbo of unestablished hypotheses. It should not be allowed to be considered a consensus established by mere repetition of assertion.

Albert C. Sundberg, Jr. writes in “The Old Testament of the Early Church” Revisited 1997:

Are there alternatives to Jamnia (or later Usha)? As we have seen, it was at Jamnia that the tradition says the Hillelites gained the ascendancy over the house of Shammai. It was the school at Jamnia that became a substitute for the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem. It was at Jamnia that the third section of the Hebrew canon was first named. It was the Jamnia decisions that, while not “official,” came to be generally accepted in post-destruction Judaism. It may be that we have followed too quickly after Lewis in his attack upon Jamnia in order to foster his belief in a Hebrew canon from pre-Christian times. But that case, as we have seen, is confounded by numerous difficulties. With the time of canonization of the Hebrew tripartite canon now probably fixed between 70 and 135 CE, and as a triumph of the Hillelite Pharisee in post-destruction Judaism, what alternatives are there to Jamnia as the venue?

The Jewish Encyclopedia on the period of Jamnia – The destruction of Jerusalem put as abrupt an end to the disputes of the schools as it did to the contests between political parties [ Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, Zealots ]. It was then that a disciple of Hillel, the venerable Yohanan ben Zakkai, founded a new home for Jewish Law in Jabneh – Yavneh (Jamnia), and thus evoked a new intellectual life from the ruins of a fallen political existence. The college at Jabneh, which at once constituted itself the successor of the Great Sanhedrin of Jerusalem by putting into practise the ordinances of that body as far as was necessary and practicable, attracted all those who had escaped the national catastrophe and who had become prominent by their character and their learning. Moreover, it reared a new generation of similarly gifted men, whose task it became to overcome the evil results of still another dire catastrophe — the unfortunate Bar Kokba war with its melancholy ending. During the interval between these two disasters (56-117), or, more accurately, until the War of Quietus under Trajan, the school at Jabneh was the recognized tribunal that gathered the traditions of the past and confirmed them; that ruled and regulated existing conditions; and that sowed the seeds for future development. Next to its founder, it owed its splendor and its undisputed supremacy especially to the energetic Gamaliel, a great-grandson of Hillel, called Gamaliel II., or Gamaliel of Jabneh, in order to distinguish him from his grandfather, Gamaliel I. To him flocked the pupils of Johanan ben Zakkai and other masters and students of the Law and of Biblical interpretation. Though some of them taught and labored in other places — Eliezer ben Hyrcanus in Lydda; Joshua ben Hananiah in Pe?iin; Ishmael ben Elisha in Kefar Aziz, Akiba in Bene Bera?; Hananiah (?anina) ben Teradyon in Siknin — Jabneh remained the center; and in “the vineyard” of Jabneh, as they called their place of meeting, they used to assemble for joint action.

In the fertile ground of the Jabneh Academy the roots of the literature of tradition — Midrash and Mishnah, Talmud and Aggadah — were nourished and strengthened. There, too, the way was paved for a systematic treatment of Halakah and exegesis. In Jabneh were held the decisive debates upon the canonicity of certain Biblical books; there the prayer-liturgy received its permanent form; and there, probably, was edited the Targum on the Pentateuch, which became the foundation for the later Targum called after Onkelos. It was Jabneh that inspired and sanctioned the new Greek version of the Bible — that of Akylas (Aquila). The events that preceded and followed the great civil revolution under Bar Kokba (from the year 117 to about 140) resulted in the decay and death of the school at Jabneh. According to tradition (R. H. 31b), the Sanhedrin was removed from Jabneh to Usha, from Usha back to Jabneh, and a second time from Jabneh to Usha. This final settlement in Usha indicates the ultimate spiritual supremacy of Galilee over Judea, the latter having become depopulated by the war of Hadrian. Usha remained for a long time the seat of the academy; its importance being due to the pupils of Akiba, one of whom, Judah ben Ilai, had his home in Usha. Here was undertaken the great work of the restoration of Palestinian Judaism after its disintegration under Hadrian. The study of the Law flourished anew; and Simon, a son of Gamaliel, was invested with the rank that had been his father’s in Jabneh. With him the rank of patriarch became hereditary in the house of Hillel, and the seat of the academy was made identical with that of the patriarch.

Late first century developments attributed to Jamnia – Today, there is no scholarly consensus as to when the Jewish canon was set. Nevertheless, the outcomes attributed to the Council of Jamnia did occur whether gradually or in a definitive, authoritative council. Several concerns of the remaining Jewish communities in Israel would have been the loss of the national language, the growing problem of conversions to Christianity, based in part on Christian promises of life after death. What emerged from this era was two fold:

1. A rejection of the Septuagint or Koine Greek Old Testament widely then in use among the Hellenized diaspora along with its additional books not part of the Hebrew language Masoretic Text.

2. The inclusion of a curse on the Minim which probably included Jewish Christians (Birkat ha-Minim). According to the Jewish Encyclopedia article on Min: “In passages referring to the Christian period, “minim” usually indicates the Judæo-Christians, the Gnostics, and the Nazarenes, who often conversed with the Rabbis on the unity of God, creation, resurrection, and similar subjects (comp. Sanh. 39b). In some passages, indeed, it is used even for “Christian”; but it is possible that in such cases it is a substitution for the word “No?eri,” which was the usual term for ‘Christian’… On the invitation of Gamaliel II., Samuel ha-?a?an composed a prayer against the minim which was inserted in the “Eighteen Benedictions“; it is called “Birkat ha-Minim” and forms the twelfth benediction; but instead of the original “No?erim” … the present text has “wela-malshinim” (=”and to the informers”). The cause of this change in the text was probably, the accusation brought by the Church Fathers against the Jews of cursing all the Christians under the name of the Nazarenes.”

Sociologically, these developments achieved two important ends, namely, the preservation of the Hebrew language at least for religious use (even among the Diaspora) and the final separation and distinction between the Jewish and Christian communities. (Through nearly the end of the first century, Christians of Jewish descent continued to pray in synagogues.)

Some of the books not admitted into the Hebrew canon, such as Wisdom and 2 Maccabees, gave the only textual support for the common first century Jewish belief in the after-life. The martyrs’ prayers for the dead and the living praying and offering sacrifices for the dead motivated Martin Luther to reject these books as apocryphal because they supported Catholic doctrine and practice.