Amos

Of course he is, or they would be Catholics who follow the example set by Jesus. That is why Jews are mesmerized and when renewal comes their way they will be like brothers of Jesus.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hello, there, Baidarka,

In mainstream literature, I've often come across this view that the anti-Semitism of the NT was a consequence of some sort of a painful schism. But it seems like there are many problems with this view.

For starters, the exact date when "prayers were added to the [synagogue] services that the followers of Jesus could not pronounce" is not at all clear. What is the date-range for this, in your view?

And second, even if we assume that there was some sort of a "painful schism", what sort of a schism do you think it was? And again, how do you date it?

Myself, I'm totally persuaded by Loisy's analysis. He says that antisemitic passages in the NT were mostly added after the Second Jewish War.

Regards,

Yuri.

Apikorus

On the Jewish side, we have an interesting reference in the Talmud in B. Berakhot 29a:
The Gamaliel in this quote is Gamaliel II, and the time period is toward the end of the first century CE (ca. 85 CE).

The blessing commissioned by Gamaliel II was the birkat haminim, the blessing against heretics which is the twelfth blessing in the Jewish prayer unit known as the amidah (=`standing'). The amidah also goes by the name shemonah esrei, or "eighteen". The talmudic citation above refers to the eighteen (benedictions). Incidentally, there are 19 blessings in the shemonah esrei, which is an interesting story that has an important connection to this gemara (= Talmudic excerpt).

The amidah has remained a central element of the Jewish liturgy, and is recited regularly by traditional Jews today. The twelfth blessing, against heretics (Heb. minim) reads: Some elements of the liturgy and the rabbinic writings were, during the middle ages, subject to censoring by Christian authorities. In this connection, it is interesting to note that one of the fragments from the genizah of the old city of Cairo contained a version of the birkat haminim which explicitly mentioned notzrim (= Nazareans = Jewish converts to Christianity during the first century CE).

(A genizah is a room adjoining a synagogue where old and worn sacred documents are kept prior to ritual disposal (= burial). The Cairo genizah was discovered in the late 19th century. It contained fragments of Jewish documents from the 8th and 9th centuries CE, including a version of one of the Dead Sea Scrolls known as the Covenant of Damascus - a fascinating story which I haven't the time to go into here. Much of the material from the Cairo genizah was analyzed by the rabbinic scholar Solomon Schechter of Cambridge University.)

Here's the birkat haminim from the genizah document:Synthesis: The birkat haminim, whose roots may have originated during Hasmonean times, was applied to Jewish converts to Christianity (notzrim) and added to the amidah during the time of Gamaliel II, ca. 85 CE. Perhaps not coincidentally, some of the nastiest anti-Jewish invective in the canonical gospels is found in the Gospel of John, which is the latest of the four, generally dated to ca. 95 CE. It is natural to posit that as the early Christians came to be definitively rejected by their Jewish brethren (who enshrined a blessing (really a curse) against them in their liturgy), they lashed out more stridently in their own texts. To what extent various passages in the NT should be regarded as anti-Jewish is a tricky point. I think it anachronistic to impute either anti-Judaism (hatred of or opposition to normative Jewish practice) or antisemitism (racial hatred of Jews) to the gospel authors. Rather, these passages are best understood as sectarian polemic very much akin to what is found in the Hebrew Bible itself or in the Dead Sea Scrolls (although anti-Jewish/antisemitic passages could have been inserted by later redactors). Ultimately, Christianity failed among the Jews but succeeded greatly in the Hellenistic world, at which point the sectarian polemic of the New Testament was transmogrified into full blown Christian antisemitism, as the writings of the patristic authors attest. Explicit reference to Christians (notzrim) was excised from the birkat haminim during the middle ages, due to the actions of (or for fear of) Christian authorities.

Incidentally, the amidah from the Cairo genizah contains 18 blessings - not 19. Some scholars, starting with Schechter's student Ismar Elbogen, believe that two of the blessings - numbers 14 (for Jerusalem) and 15 (for David) - had originally been one single blessing. (Both mention David.) At some point they were split. Yet B. Berakhot 29a also refers to the problem of there being 19 and not 18 blessings. One possibility is that the birkat haminim commissioned by Gamaliel II was indeed the 18th blessing. (18 also is the gematria, or numerical equivalent, of the Hebrew word for life, chai = חי - maybe Gamaliel wanted to add a blessing to the amidah in order to achieve this special number?) Then at some point between the time of Gamaliel II (ca. 85 CE) and the writing of B. Berakhot (ca. 400 CE???) the 14th and 15th blessings had split apart. All this is quite speculative, of course.

Yuri Kuchinsky

That's for sure. And especially the exact dating of this "birkat haminim" against the Christians.

I don't think anybody can be really sure that it dates to the first century. The second century is just as plausible. The scholars express quite a range of views on this.

All the best,

Yuri.

Apikorus

Yuri, you're right - it could plausibly date from the first half of the second century as well. The terminus ad quem is set by an early patristic reference in the writings of Justin Martyr. The citation from B. Berakhot is late, as I said. Reference to the "insolent reign in our day" is plausibly a late addition to the cursing of heretics, and likely is not of Yavnean provenance (whatever happened at Yavneh...).

Incidentally, there's a fascinating reference in the Yerushalmi of Berakhot to the fact that there were seventeen blessings prior to the introduction of the birkat haminim. This provides further evidence that in the Babylonian tradition two of the blessings (14 and 15?) had originally been unified. The "Palestinian recension" from the Cairo genizah reflects this configuration.

Apikorus

Yuri, I looked up the reference to the Yerushalmi. Y. Berakhot IV.3 (8a):
So both the Bavli and the Yerushalmi traditions have the birkat haminim composed at Yavneh, for what it's worth.

I found this tidbit in a beautiful article by Philip Alexander, entitled `The Parting of the Ways' from the Perspective of Rabbinic Judaism in a collection of essays, Jews and Christians: The Parting of the Ways A.D. 70 to 135 edited by J. D. G. Dunn.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hello, Apikorus,

I haven't looked at this subject recently but, if memory serves, there's no real certainty among scholars that the "council at Yavneh" even took place at the date indicated. The whole thing is quite speculative.

OTOH, we have various indications that Jews and Jewish-Christians still stayed quite friendly for many centuries to come.

Myself, I don't believe there was any "big separation" at an early date.

Best,

Yuri.

Clarice O'C

Hello,

I don't know how much Jewish opposition there is to Christianity but I want to bring up the point that there is quite a lot of Jewish opposition to the Messianic Jewish movement and "Jews for Jesus." So much so that the Jews for Jesus have "Guidelines for Dealing with the Opposition." The Jews for Jesus sound much like Christians in the following article. A piece of it:

* * * *

"When Opposition Knocks"


"We can expect to encounter hostility. Whether we are students, dentists or housewives, we will face the same accusations Jesus and His first followers faced. He never taught us to expect approval. He prepared us for rejection.

"Please don't misunderstand. Our fellow Jews are not our enemies! Sadly, there are many in the Jewish community who engage us as though we were their enemies. There are those who have chosen to believe we are committing the spiritual genocide of our own people. We find ourselves on a battleground of a war that we never wanted, targets of strategies and tactics devised by self-proclaimed anti-missionaries who terrorize our Jewish families and friends with stories of "the missionary threat." Sometimes our families and friends are taken in by the vituperation. Some believers have even had misgivings about their faith as a result. But Paul admonishes us in Ephesians 6 to put on the "armor of God." Notice what the first piece of that armor is: the belt of truth. Let's look together at some of the strategies and tactics that are employed so that we can see them for what they are. When we can see the truth about these strategies, we are free to respond in faith and in knowledge."

http://www.jfjonline.org/pub/mm/92Summer/knocks.htm

Yikes.

This is one of the funniest parts:

"Moses certainly must have been traumatized as a baby by being put in a basket on the river, not to mention being raised by gentiles!"

Best,
Clarice

Apikorus

Yuri, it depends on what you mean by "early". Overwhelmingly scholars accept that by the mid-2nd century there was a schism. Evidence for a schism prior to bar Kokhba is of course weaker but certainly plausible. I'd be interested to know (i) if you believe that any of the notionally anti-Jewish passages in the New Testament are reflective of this split and (ii) when do you think they are to be dated? When do you think John's gospel was written?

Regarding Yavneh, I don't believe there was a formal rabbinical council there. I use the term more as a periodization. I think it does make sense to infer a timeline of Tannaim and Amoraim from the Talmud, i.e. I'm fairly confident that Gamaliel II was active in Palestine ca. 85 CE. The statements and actions attributed to these figures, though, cannot be taken simply at face value.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Well, Apikorus, I can accept this, although still one may doubt just how unified Judaism was at the time. It may be doubted that there was any Big Central Authority at that time to tell all Jews around the world what to do.

Quote:

Evidence for a schism prior to bar Kokhba is of course weaker but certainly plausible. I'd be interested to know (i) if you believe that any of the notionally anti-Jewish passages in the New Testament are reflective of this split

Some of them might be reflective. But, in my view, the "big split" was mostly initiated by Hadrian, when he banned Judaism in the Roman Empire. At that time, the Christian movement that was formerly predominantly Jewish-Christian, because predominantly Gentile-Christian.

Quote:

and (ii) when do you think they are to be dated?

Post-Hadrian, i.e. post 135 CE.

Quote:

When do you think John's gospel was written?

From the textual perspective, I see all 4 gospels as dating from ca 180-250 CE.

Quote:

Regarding Yavneh, I don't believe there was a formal rabbinical council there. I use the term more as a periodization. I think it does make sense to infer a timeline of Tannaim and Amoraim from the Talmud, i.e. I'm fairly confident that Gamaliel II was active in Palestine ca. 85 CE. The statements and actions attributed to these figures, though, cannot be taken simply at face value.

Well, here are a few things I've found on the Web today. As I say, I haven't looked into this whole area for a while. But Neusner seems to be leading the sceptical side about how early many of these traditions should be dated.

[quote]

http://homepages.which.net/~radical....ws/neusner.htm

The evidence, according to Neusner, is clear. The Jewish
authorities who refer to Hillel's treatment of law, his wise
sayings and his rise to pre-eminence all date from after the
Bar Kochba war around 140ce. This war was the last gasp
of Jewish nationalism. Just as Yohanan ben Zakkai had
begun to build a rabbinical tradition after the fall of
Jerusalem so "There was interest in recovering usable
spiritual heroes from within Pharisaism itself, in place of
Bar Kokba and other messianic types."

Unlike so many New testament scholars who are seemingly
more interested in rescuing the entire New Testament as
good history, Neusner is blunt about the effect of his
findings. He's worth quoting in full on this point:

Despite the rich and impressive Hillel tradition
... we can hardly conclude that with Hillel the
rabbinic traditions about pre-70ce Pharisees
enter the pages of history. The traditions
concerning Hillel do not lay a considerable claim
to historical plausibility. They provide an
accurate account only of what later generations
thought important to say about, or in the name
of, Hillel.

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/V.../980317_e.html

Jacob Neusner has advanced the
controversial observation that no rabbinic master of Hillel's day or even at
Yavneh ever quoted or mentioned Hillel. Neusner argues that most of the
teachings about Hillel are much later, from the second century. The
possibility that Hillel was created by later rabbis as a Jewish response to
Jesus cannot be dismissed. The rest of the tractate establishes a chain of
tradition for what is commonly called the Oral Law, teachings from earlier
sages up to the time of the Mishnah. There is a clear line of demarcation
between the sages with two groups, rarely mentioned together--one from
70-132--the first and second generations--and another, much larger group
from 135-200--the third generation.

[unquote]

Best regards,

Yuri.