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It has been correctly observed "that Gentile Christianity in the latter first century and second century achieved a synthesis between the Greco-Oriental and the Jewish religions in the Roman Empire." Whether this synthesis was actually achieved in the first century or somewhat later through Gentile Christian influence is not the issue at hand. Three stages may be noted in the synthesis of Greco-Oriental and Jewish religion—in the transition from Judaism to Christianity.
Each was distinctive and all three were ultimately merged, though not without great controversy and confusion, in the final orthodox version.
Paul is the bridge between the Judaic gospel of Yeshua concerning the coming of the Kingdom of God and the urgent need for repentance, and the thoroughly Hellenistic Logos gospel of John, wherein the Word which was God became flesh in Yeshua, the Son of God, one with the Father, who was sent by God to overcome the dominion of Satan in the world and, having accomplished his mission, returned to God. More on Paul in a moment.
"When Yeshua came into Galilee, spreading the gospel of the Kingdom of God and saying the time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand" (Mark 1:14), he was voicing the opinion widely held that the year 5000 in the Creation calendar which was to usher in the sixth millennium—the age of the Kingdom of God—was "at hand." Induced by the popular chronology and corresponding eschatology of the day, the mass of the people came to believe that they were on the threshold of the Millennium. The advent of the Millennium carried along with it the appearance of the Messiah and his appointed activities. Yeshua's essential mission was messianic, and he sought to save men from the "birth throes" of the messianic times by calling them to swift and thoroughgoing repentance so that they may be found worthy to enter the Kingdom.
There was nothing in it which endangered their faith. There were apocalyptically-minded Pharisaic Jews who believed that the order of the world was about to change and that they were on the threshold of the Millennium. There were those who did not believe it. It was not an issue involving a fundamental creed. To those who did believe in the approaching cosmic catastrophe, thoroughgoing repentance would logically put them in position to be inheritors of the Kingdom.
Because there were many at that time who were expecting the coming of the Messiah, or his forerunner, to announce the beginning of a new age, the generation abounded in Messianic movements, each one fraught with grave political consequences for the peace of the nation. The Roman imperium was ruthless in the suppression of all such messianic claimants because they were suspected of seeking the overthrow of Roman authority and the reestablishment of Jewish independence. The Jewish Messiah, when he appeared, would be proclaimed King of the Jews.
When Yeshua was put to death, his faithful followers were confronted with a dreadful dilemma and embarrassment. It was to them a crushing catastrophe. Their master had been arrested, tried, condemned, and crucified.
As far as Yeshua's disciples were concerned, Yeshua's death was proof that he was not the true Messiah, that he was no different from the many others who had recently appeared as pretenders to that role and who had been liquidated by the Romans.
Answer for yourself: If Yeshua were the true Messiah, why did he die?
Answer for yourself: Was not his mission a failure?
Facing obstacles such as the death of Yeshua, the people of that day understood that Isaiah 53 never referred to a person but to the whole nation of Israel which is the suffering servant, and that nowhere in the Jewish Scriptures was the expected Messiah every to be killed. This meant that the disciples were forced to come up with some answers. Two answers were soon supplied by the faithful. But what is of importance for our study is "who" came up with these answers.
Answer for yourself: Was it the Jewish followers who came up with these answers in total or were their ideas elaborated on by the soon emerging Gentile Church?
It was taught that Yeshua died, it was true, but he was soon resurrected. He was seen alive after his entombment. Where is he now? He ascended to heaven and will soon reappear on earth to complete his mission and usher in the Millennium. This was the Jewish belief; especially the Essenes who had believed that their slain teacher of Righteousness would reappear to consummate Israel's deliverance. Many thought that Yeshua was this reappearing of their beloved teacher and after Yeshua's death hope lingered again for an appearance to fulfill these Essene expectations.
Answer for yourself: But why did Yeshua die?
Paul is responsible for bringing Gnostic thoughts and connecting them to the death of Yeshua. According to Paul, himself a Gnostic mystic, Yeshua died in order to atone by his death for the Original Sin with which mankind was fatefully burdened since Adam. Understand that this is not normal Gnosticism. It is true Gnosticism provided salvation to the initiate through special "gnosis" or knowledge whereby one ascended a cosmic ladder of spirituality to a Gnostic Savior God. Paul incorporated a rather novel aspect in that he identified this Gnostic Savior as Yeshua. Yeshua had called upon men to repent of their own personal sins in preparation for the Kingdom, but there was also a collective sin, it was argued, the primordial sin of Adam, in which all men shared and for which no individual could atone. It was necessary for the Messiah, who had been sent by God, to take upon himself the universal sin of mankind, and by his death to atone for it so that the tragic debt would be paid for all time. This was the Gentile contribution thanks to the teachings of Paul; himself a Gentile convert to Judaism according to the Ebionite records.
This was Paul's contribution to the theological complex of Christianity—vicarious expiation, for which Biblical proof was soon sought and discovered in Isaiah 53. It was the second step in the development of Christian theology. There is only one problem with Paul's view. When Isaiah 53 is read in context, and along with Isa 40-66 one quickly can see for themselves that Isa 53 is not about a man, or a Messiah, but about a corporate nations that has suffered for hundreds and hundreds of years at the hands of Gentile anti-Semites. Coupled with this the correct understanding of the Jewish Sacrificial System where "atonement" was procured before the blood was shed through repentance, prayer, confession, restitution, alms. etc. Our failure as follower of Jesus and Christians render us susceptible to false teachings taken from sun worship as taught by Paul and we never know it; that is until you study Judaism and the religion of Jesus whereby you are then qualified to read the New Testament and "cast out the leaven." If you would like proof inquire of our series on Isa. 53 and the facts will quickly become clear for you. This unorthodox interpretation was and yet is rejected by the vast majority of Jews who know their Prophets and their messages.
With Judaism, Torah was central; with Yeshua the Kingdom and rulership of God over men was everything; with Paul it was the redemptive role of Yeshua. Their messages are not the same.
There are several problems encountered with Paul's contribution. First of all Biblical Judaism has no concept of Original Sin. That means Yeshua, being an orthodox Jew would not have believed such a premise as espoused by Paul. If Paul was a Jew, and there is much doubt in that, as many scholars today believe he was a Gentile convert, then it is not surprising that such concepts foreign to Judaism would be espoused by him. Such is the creation of the Gentile Catholic Church, the legacy of Paul, and read backward into the era of Yeshua. But to do so in a total deception and clouds the events and meaning of Yeshua's death. Along with this is the total absence in the Torah and the Prophets of a Messiah coming to die for sin, let alone coming to die. If one does his study in these areas, you will find what I did. Pagan Gentiles and their false pagan religions are replete with examples of pagan gods dying and shedding their blood for the salvation of their followers. Along with this add the misinterpretation of Isa. 53 and no wonder the Christian believes what he does about the death of Yeshua.
I know what I just said is hard to swallow, especially for the Christian believer, but don't believe me….study it out for yourself. Do some research. You have a computer so use the Internet to find scholarly works by authorities and learn what has been kept from you most of your life. Buy good books and study. The truth lies buried today under 2000 years of Gentile anti-Semitism. You will have to expend some effort to find it.
The third step was taken in the Diaspora in the course of the missionary preaching about the resurrected redeemer to the Roman world. Here the Hellenistic idea of the Logos was widely current both among Jews and among pagans—the Logos, the Word of God, the instrument by which God, the Transcendent, worked His will in the world. The Logos took on many degrees of personification, from what might be called a pure abstraction among the Jews to a God in submission and a co-worker with the Supreme Deity. It was necessary to come to terms with this Logos idea, whether as attribute, instrument, or divine personality, if the Christian gospel was to be widely accepted. This fusing or reconciliation was achieved and is reflected in the Gospel of John. "In the beginning was the Word . . ."
This was the third stage. Yeshua became the Logos, the incarnate Word of God, the God made flesh. Orthodox Gentile Christianity, after many bitter disputes and conflicting church councils, finally accepted and fused all three doctrines into one—the historic messianic role of Yeshua, the resurrection and the atonement death of Yeshua preached by Paul, and the Incarnation as reflected in the Fourth Gospel.
Paul marks the dividing line between Judaism and Christianity. He was a Jew of the Diaspora (most likely a Gentile convert), a rigorous monotheist, and a bitter foe of all forms of idolatry. He had observed the ceremonial law of Judaism, but reluctantly, and at a later stage abandoned it and "died to the Law" (Gal. 2:19). His final disillusionment came when he saw that some of the very champions of the Law among Judeo-Christians, like Peter and Barnabas, were acting insincerely and inconsistently in the matter (Gal.2:11-14).
Paul claims to have been extremely zealous, before his conversion, for the traditions of his fathers. But he must have been impatient with the Law even before he was converted or he could not have spoken of the Law as "a curse" from which men were finally redeemed by the atonement of Yeshua.Again such statements betray Paul's Gentile background, for no good Jew would every say such things about the Torah.
Answer for yourself: How could the vision of the resurrected Yeshua on the road to Damascus have made him such a bitter and violent enemy of the Law?
Answer for yourself: What made Paul oppose all of Judaism in his opposition to the Laws of God?
Certainly Yeshua was not of the same persuasion as Paul. There must have been other Jews, even before the days of Paul, especially in the Hellenistic Diaspora, who fretted under the restraints of the Mosaic ceremonial code, who found the Law a serious hindrance to their free social and economic contacts with the non-Jewish world, and who in their hearts preferred a purely spiritual Judaism which was based solely on faith in the One God of Abraham, and not cumbered with the legislation which Moses ordained. This was Paul's stance as well. But they had no authority upon which to base their views such as Paul found in Yeshua the Messiah who by his appearance ushered in a new age and a new dispensation. In any event, it is clear that Paul wished to bypass Moses and the covenant of Sinai altogether and return to the original covenant of Abraham, to the universal monotheistic faith, which all the nations of the earth could share. Paul wanted to reject the Torah, but he could not reject it outright. The Torah was needed to substantiate and bear witness to Yeshua and to his role in history. Paul therefore appealed from Moses to Abraham—from the Sinai covenant, which in his view was a restrictive, negative, and temporal covenant, to the covenant of Abraham which was universal and eternal.
Five hundred years later Mohammed adopted the same line of Paul in rejecting both Judaism and Christianity. He, too, went back to the universal monotheism of Abraham. To quote from a recent study:
He [Mohammed] stated that he did not come to abrogate the Old and New Testaments, but rather to fulfill the spirit and letter of the Book. He maintained that Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but the true expounder of ethical monotheism, and that the Koran, as revealed to him by Allah, through the angel Gabriel, embodied the true revelation which the Jews and the Christians had failed to follow. Tracing his genealogy to Abraham through his son Ishmael, Mohammed claimed to be the rightful heir to Abraham's high rank.
The Law which was given to Moses at Sinai was, according to Paul, a punishment for the sins of the people of Israel. The Ten Commandments were "a dispensation of condemnation." Any written code of laws kills; only the spirit gives life (II Cor. 3:6). The Torah is such a written code. It is not merely the law of the Rabbis which Paul condemns. Actually, the law of the Rabbis was not yet as extensively developed in his day as in the subsequent centuries. It is the laws of the Torah which he principally had in mind. "Where there is no law, there is no transgression" (Rom. 4:15).
At times Paul argues that while the Law itself is not sin, it suggests and arouses sin. "If it had not been for the Law, I should not have known sin" (Rom. 7:7). Paul here has in mind not merely the ceremonial law, but the ethical law as well. "I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet"' (ibid.). At other times Paul argues that the Law is too weak to safeguard against the promptings of the flesh, the evil inclinations, within him (Rom. 8:3). At best the Law was a regrettable interlude, a custodian until the true faith was revealed. "Now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian" (Gal. 3:25).
Paul was not interested in the healing miracles and exorcisms which others reported about Yeshua and which are found so plentifully in the Gospels. He shows little interest in the human career of Yeshua altogether. The sole miracle which profoundly stirred and affected his life was the miracle of the resurrection. He knows nothing of Yeshua as God incarnate, and nothing of the Virgin Birth. He was especially eager to preach his gospel to the Gentiles and to convert them to the faith of "Christian" monotheism, thereby erasing all distinctions between Jew and non-Jew according to the promise made to Abraham: "in you all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Gen. 12:3).
The Law, as Paul saw it, was the stumbling block to the conversion of the Gentile world to the true faith. The demands of the Law—Sabbath observance, circumcision, the dietary regulations, the laws of purity—were sufficiently exacting to discourage many from accepting the faith. His passionate devotion to the resurrected Yeshua and the salvation which he was convinced flowed from him for all mankind, and his proselytizing zeal, made him bitterly intolerant of the Law. "Christ is the end of the Law" (Rom. 10:4). The covenant of Sinai is Hagar, bearing children for slavery. The covenant of Abraham is Sarah. "Cast out the slave and her son!" (Gal. 4:30)
Nevertheless, Paul was prepared to practice the Law himself if by so doing he might win over those under the Law to the true faith (I. Cor. 9:2). For this reason he advised the faithful to avoid eating of food which might have been sacrificed to idols, a very grave matter in the eyes of law-abiding Jews, not because he regarded the act itself as unlawful, for "all things are lawful," but so as not to give offense and make the work of conversion more difficult (I Cor. 10:23-33). The faithful should not make an issue of food or Sabbath observance, of clean or unclean, or of circumcision, but "pursue what makes for peace" (Rom. 14: I 3f.).
Paul was thus ambivalent on the subject of the Law, even as he was on the election of Israel, his other troublesome theological inconsistency. Paul assigned to the Jewish people a special role in the new dispensation. Like Yeshua, he too evidently believed that "salvation is from the Jews." "God has not rejected this people whom he foreknow" (Rom. 11:2). "As regards the gospel they are enemies of God for your sake: but as regards election they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" (Rom. 11:28-29). It is an advantage to be born a Jew. "Then what advantage has the Jew? . . Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews are entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?" (Rom. 3:1-3). "They are Israelites, and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the Law, the worship and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Messiah" (Rom. 9:4-5).
The universalism of Paul was not free of local patriotism. Israel "after the flesh" was still the chosen people. At times there appears to be no contradiction in his mind between a national faith and its universal mission. At other times there decidedly is.
The total effect of Paul's opinion on the Law and his ambivalence was to denigrate its sanctity in the eyes of assimilation-minded Jews and to nullify it completely as far as Gentiles seeking conversion were concerned.
There was violent resistance among the early Judeo-Christian brotherhoods of Palestine and elsewhere to Paul's attitude toward the Law. They looked upon the Law—the Torah—as sacred and eternally binding upon themselves and their descendants, and not as a punishment but a privilege. The Jewish-Christian Ebionites, according to Irenaeus (2 C.), rejected Paul because he was an apostate from the Law. The early Christians among the Jews saw no contradiction between their loyalty to traditional Judaism and their belief in the Messiahship of Yeshua. They were aware of no new covenant or dispensation. Jewish Christians who observed the Sabbath and the festivals, circumcision, the dietary laws, and the laws of purity persisted well into the third century. Orthodox Gentile Christianity attacked them bitterly. "It is monstrous," wrote Ignatius (2 C.), "to talk of Yeshua and to practice Judaism." Some Rabbis, on the other hand, like Simon the Pious (3 C.) and Simon ben Lakish (3 c.), defended these Judeo-Christians, and did not wish to exclude them from the Jewish community.
The "burden of the Law" was regarded by loyal Jews not as a burden at all, but as a wholesome discipline. The purpose of the Law was to increase personal holiness and to refine the spirit of man,"—not to make him aware of his inability to fulfill it and thus force him to rely exclusively upon grace and redemption. God wished to increase the merits of Israel, wherefore he multiplied for them laws and commandments. The Jews found the Torah and its statutes and ordinances "perfect, reviving the soul; rejoicing the heart . . . enlightening the eyes . . . more to be desired than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb" (Ps. I9:8-10).
With everlasting love hast Thou loved the House of Israel, Thy people. Torah and commandment, statute and judgment hast Thou taught us. Therefore, O Lord our God, when we lie down and when we rise up we will meditate on Thy statutes. We will rejoice in the words of Thy Torah and in Thy commandment forever; for they are our life and the length of our days. Blessed art Thou, who lovest Thy people, Israel.
The Jewish people—Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes alike could not have accepted Paul's conception of the Law under any circumstances. It was utterly alien to them, as it was to the Jewish-Christians of Palestine, as it would have been to Yeshua himself, who did not oppose the Law at all and who did not seek to abrogate it for the sake of making proselytes among the Gentiles. Paul's position cut at the very roots of their faith. That is why we find Jews desiring to put Paul to death since the Torah commands death of a False Prophet and Paul's message was a lie. There has always been a debate among Jews as to the extent to which one is free to interpret the Written Law and by what technique, and whether the Oral Law is binding and to what extent. Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews have continued the debate to this day. But no organized Jewish religious group ever maintained that the Law could be dispensed with altogether, that the Law was a curse or that faith alone was sufficient.
In fact, it was the Law around which the faithful in Israel rallied in the disastrous days which followed the destruction of the Temple and the collapse of the state, and again during the savage Hadrianic persecutions. The spiritual chaos of those times, the crushed and beaten morale of the people, the danger of complete prostration, are nowhere so movingly portrayed as in the Apocalypse of Baruch (2C.C.E.), written contemporaneously with some parts of the New Testament; and its exalted faith, rising from amidst the ruins, reflects the indestructible strength and nobility of a Judaism based on Torah:
"For the shepherds of Israel have perished, And the lamps which gave light are extinguished, And the fountains have withheld their stream whence we used to drink, And we are left in darkness, And amid the trees of the forest, And the thirst of the wilderness." And I answered and said unto them: "Shepherds and lamps and fountains come from the Law: And though we depart, yet the Law abides. If therefore you have respect to the Law, And are intent upon wisdom, A lamp will not be wanting And a shepherd will not fail, And a fountain will not dry up."
One is forced to the conclusion that not all the Jews who lived in the century in which Paul and other Christian antinomists preached regarded the Law as a curse! Many looked upon it lovingly, as a blessing and a refuge, even as centuries before it had been for the sorely afflicted "a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (Ps. 119:105). One hundred and seventy-six verses are devoted in this psalm to an exuberant exaltation of the Torah.
The Christian Church itself soon came to have laws—ceremonial laws—of its own, and in time they were codified into canons of religious and ecclesiastical practices—baptism, the eucharist, the sacraments, communion feasts, fasts and Sunday laws, penance and unction, priesthood and confession, ecclesiastical regulations and privileges, tithes, pilgrimages and shrines, rituals, incense and vestments—an Halakhah quite as meticulous and burdensome as that of the Scribes and the Pharisees. The Church, too, came to acknowledge the importance of canons in the regulation of faith and discipline. The great experiment in building a Church on pure faith did not succeed!
Certainly, no one who is acquainted with the determined and persistent struggle for the pure monotheistic faith among the people of Israel since the days of Moses and the Prophets could have assumed for a moment then or since that Judaism would find acceptance for the concept of a God such as one finds in the Fourth Gospel, a God who came down to earth, assumed human form, and suffered death for the salvation of men—a doctrine which Yeshua himself never taught. These ideas were known to the Jews long before the time of Yeshua, and had been rejected by them. They were popular and current in the ancient world. As Professor Murray correctly states:
The idea of an "only begotten son" of God was regular in the Orphic systems, and that of a son of God by a mortal woman, conceived in some spiritual way, and born for the saving of mankind, was at least as old as the fifth century B.C.... That this Saviour "suffered and was buried" is common to the Vegetation or Year religions, with their dying and suffering gods; . . . That after the descent to Hades He should arise to judge both the quick and the dead is a slight modification of the ordinary Greek notion, according to which the Judges were already seated at their work, but it may have come from the Saviour religions. The belief in God as a Trinity. or as One substance with three "personae,"…is directly inherited from Greek speculation....
Judaism had resisted these notions for centuries.
It is understandable that Fourth Gospel ideas should have found acceptance among those in the pagan world who had long been habituated to them through mystery religions, or among Gentile pagan proselytes to Judaism to whom such ideas would appear neither strange nor startling and among whom the Christian propaganda actually made its first converts. These concepts might not be strongly resisted by those who, in the Hellenistic world, entertained the current ideas of a Logos, the Word made flesh, the Incarnation of divine wisdom and the mediator between God and man. They certainly could not be accepted by Torah-trained Jews to whom the concept of the unity of God, simple and undifferentiated, was the bedrock of their faith.
The Jewish people could not but reject such a doctrine unless it were prepared to abandon the most treasured and essential conviction for which it had struggled through the centuries and of which it believed itself to be the covenanted guardian and spokesman to the world. It could not accept a renewed mythologizing of God, which it had resisted for a thousand years, even though the concept of a born, dying, and resurrected God might now be presented as a metaphysical idea and not as a concrete event which took place on a specific date in history or as a Trinitarian conception of monotheism. Judaism could find no room in its monotheism for the concept of Yeshua as "Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary" (The Apostles' Creed), or as "Very God of Very God" (Nicene Creed), or as "Perfect God and Perfect Man" (Athanasian Creed).
It was not the rejection of the Rabbinic law which made of Christianity a Gentile faith; the Sadducees had also rejected it, and centuries later, the Karaites, who remained, however violently opposed, a minority within the borders of Judaism. Though some Rabbinic authorities would have nothing to do with the Karaites, others like Maimonides urged that they be treated as erring brothers and ministered to as members of the household of Israel. It was the rejection of all authority to the Law and the idea of a God incarnate which placed Christianity outside the bounds of Judaism. Here was the fork of the road!
Judaism rejected nothing in the teachings of Yeshua which, if accepted, would have added one cubit to its stature or in any way re-enforced its monotheism or its moral code. It was to the Gentile world that Christianity made its monumental contribution. It was upon the Gentile world that Christianity, profiting from the momentum of the frontal attack upon polytheism and idolatry which Judaism in its proselytizing activity had been carrying on, and equipped with much of Judaism's lofty and cleansing moral code, made its powerful impact. Where Judaism in its proselytizing efforts could attain only a limited success because it would not yield in its requirements for full acceptance of the Law on the part of those who sought conversion, Christianity, making no such requirements, scored heavily. Christianity was able to bring large sections of the Gentile world—then in the throes of a prolonged spiritual crisis resulting from the breakdown of its ancient beliefs and the failure of its ethical philosophies to satisfy the spiritual needs of men —to a vision of a noble faith and a clean way of life which it derived from Judaism. In so doing, Christianity contributed mightily to the spiritual progress of mankind. One cannot but salute in reverence and admiration its many teachers and leaders who through their devotion, courage, and often through their martyrdom, carried the message of their faith through the centuries to the far-flung corners of the earth.
Maimonides and other Jewish spokesmen regarded Yeshua as well as Mohammed as divine instruments in preparing the way for mankinds universal conversion to faith in the one true God. Maimonides wrote: "All these teachings of Yeshua the Nazarene and Mohammed who arose after him were intended to pave the way for the coming of the King Messiah and to prepare the whole world to worship God together as one."
But it was not the pristine monotheism of Judaism which Christianity in its missionary zeal conveyed to the Gentile world, nor exclusively its sturdy, practical, this-worldly ethics. It was a syncretistic faith—strongly salvationist in character, with a major accent on the promise of immortality—far in advance of anything in the Greco-Roman world, but not the uncompromising monotheism of Judaism. Its moral idealism excelled anything the ancient world had to offer, but it was unlike Judaism in that it was oriented toward a Kingdom not of this world.
Thus a mighty stream of influence flowed out of Judaism at the beginning of the common era and, dividing from it, watered benignly many lands and cultures. Other streams were in time to flow out of it and, again dividing, were to pursue their independent courses through history. But the river which is Judaism, replenished by the ageless springs of it's own inspiration, continued to follow its own course to its appointed destiny known only to God. Shalom.
