Geza Vermes on the transition from Jewish Christians to Gentiles
A
turning point in the Jesus movement, Peter baptizes the Roman centurion
Cornelius, the first non-Jewish Christian, in Jerusalem (Acts 10), as
shown in one of five baptism scenes on a 12th-century baptismal font in
St. Bartholomew’s Church in Liège, Belgium. Image: Jean-Pol Grandmont.
Today
the concept of “Jewish Christians” may sound like a confusion of two
religions. However, to understand the origin of Christianity, one must
begin with the population of Jewish Christians who lived during Jesus’
lifetime.
In the November/December 2012 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Dead Sea Scrolls and early Christianity scholar
Geza Vermes
explores the origin of Christianity by examining the characteristics of
the Jewish Jesus movement to see how it developed into a distinctly
gentile religion.
In the New Testament, Jesus only preaches to a Jewish audience. Geza
Vermes describes the mission of the 11 apostles to preach to “all the
nations” (Matthew 28:19) as a “‘post-Resurrection’ idea.” After the
crucifixion, the apostles began to champion a new faith in Jesus and the
ranks of the Jesus movement (known as “the Way” at the time) swelled to
3,000 Jewish converts. At first, these followers were distinctly
Jewish, following Mosaic law, Temple traditions and dietary customs.
Geza Vermes writes that “Acts identifies the demographic watershed
regarding the composition of the Jesus movement. It began around 40 C.E.
with the admission into the church of the family of the Roman centurion
Cornelius in Caesarea (Acts 10). Later came the gentile members of the
mixed Jewish-Greek church in Antioch (Acts 11:19–24; Galatians 2:11–14),
as well as the many pagan converts of Paul in Syria, Asia Minor and
Greece. With them the Jewish monopoly in the new movement came to an
end. Jewish and gentile Christianity was born.”
New from BAS: Partings—How Judaism and Christianity Became Two. Never before has this multi-faceted process been documented so engagingly and so authoritatively by so many eminent scholars.
As gentiles joined the Jesus movement, focus on Jewish law decreased and
we start to see the origin of Christianity as a distinct religion.
Jewish Christians in Jerusalem participated in separate Jewish services
from the gentile Christian population, and while the two groups agreed
on Jesus’ message and importance, the separate rites and communities led
to increasing division between the groups.
The
early-second-century Epistle of Barnabas is one of the earliest
expressions of gentile Christianity and describes Jesus as quasi-divine.
©The British Library
Geza Vermes presents the late first
century C.E. Jewish Christian Didache as an important text for
understanding the Jewish Jesus movement. The Christian document focuses
on Mosaic Law and the love of God and the neighbor, and describes the
observance of Jewish traditions alongside baptism and the recitation of
“Our Father.” The Didache treats Jesus as a charismatic prophet,
referring to Jesus with the term
pais, a word for servant or child that is also used for King David, rather than the “Son of God.”
By contrast, the early second century Epistle of Barnabas shows a
distinctly gentile Christianity in its presentation of the Hebrew Bible
as allegory instead of covenantal fact. The clearly divinized Jesus in
this document is distanced from the Jewish Christians and the divide
between the Christian communities continued to widen over time. Geza
Vermes writes that after Hadrian’s suppression of the Second Jewish
Revolt, the Jewish Christians quickly became a minority group in the
newly established church. At this point we can see the origin of
Christianity as a distinctly non-Jewish religion; late in the second
century, the Jewish Christians either rejoined their Jewish peers or
become part of the newly gentile Christian church.
——————
For more on the origin of Christianity, read Geza Vermes’s “
From Jewish to Gentile: How the Jesus Movement Became Christianity” as it appeared in
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2012.
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