Mass Confusion

“Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles, but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood.”  Acts 15:19-20  NASB

Abstain – (This is going to be long, but I don’t see any other way to clear up the mess)  There is probably no passage in the New Testament that causes more contemporary dissention among believers than this one.  Before the Reformation, we might have pointed to controversies about Yeshua’s statement “the water and the blood,” or His comment “upon this rock.”  But today the focus seems to be on James’ remark about the requirements for Gentiles.  Marianne Dacy draws the following telling conclusion:

“Certainly, those Christians who continued to hold on to Jewish ritual laws such as circumcision, food laws and other practices not assumed by the church, were ostracised and eventually driven out from orthodox Christianity.  The new religion, (for that is what Christianity became), soon would not long tolerate members who professed to be Christian, yet, retained Jewish practices. The Jewish-Christians also came under gnostic influences and were considered to have embraced beliefs that were unacceptable to the developing mainstream church. Eventually the Jewish-Christians disappeared as a movement. The isolating of the Jewish-Christians was part of the process of the separation of the church with Judaism.”[1]

This is a devastating historical assessment for those who wish to embrace Torah obedience and claim Yeshua as the Messiah.  Dacy cites the Jerusalem council from Acts 15 as the basis of the first move that would lead to the separation of Judaism from Christianity and the demise of Messianic Judaism.  If the statement of James is the proclamation that Gentiles and Jews follow different Torah requirements, then the Christian Church is justified in rejecting Judaism, the contemporary Messianic position of “two Torahs” is right and Christianity’s claim to supersede Israel seems correct.  If the majority of Christian scholars and historians are right about James’ decision not to hold Gentiles to Torah obedience is correct, then it is difficult if not impossible to object to Christianity’s understanding that grace sets aside law and that grace and law are opposing spiritual concepts.  A lot hangs in the balance, to use a Greek idiom.

There is no dispute at all that since the third century the Church has read this passage as a point of separation between Judaism and Christianity.  The historical record is clear.  But that is not the same as claiming that first century believers, including James, Peter and Paul, saw this as a point of separation.  If these men did not view this as a demarcation between Jewish Messianic believers and Gentiles who were coming to God, then it doesn’t really matter what the Church claimed because by the third century the Church had a vested interest in reading this as a strict demarcation.  What we must know is what James meant.

Let’s summarize what we know about the context of this council.  We know that:

1) Paul never abandoned his obedience to Torah.  (Consider his claims in front of Felix.)

2) Paul criticizes Peter for making distinctions between Jewish and Gentile believers.

3) Peter’s vision (Acts 10) is clearly about God’s acceptance of Gentiles, not about food.

4) James continues his remarks in Acts 15 with a clear declaration of the place of the Mosaic code in the lives of all those who attend synagogue, including Gentiles.

5) Yeshua certainly recognizes the continuing place of Torah (Matthew 5:17).

6) The historical record confirms that Torah-observant Jewish/Gentile Messianic groups continued into the Fourth Century (cf. Becker & Reed, eds. The Ways That Never Parted).

7) The exegesis of Acts 15 as a sign of separation between Jews and Gentiles within the Messianic community is not introduced until after the Church as a separate “Christian” religion is established, i.e. there is no explicit reference in Scripture itself to this supposed differentiation outside of the few texts under examination.

The entire textual framework of the Tanakh and the orientation of Judaism at the time of the Jerusalem Council would have opposed such a demarcation.  The demarcation only makes sense if James and the other apostles viewed their beliefs as a new religion, not an extension of existing Judaism.  This is contrary to the rest of Scripture.

What this means is that we must determine James’ meaning from the context of his remarks, the social-political environment and the further historical record found in Acts and other sources.  We cannot, on the basis of this text alone, determine that James meant to draw a line between two Torahs, one for Jews and one for Gentiles.

How else might we read James’ statement if we don’t accept the standard demarcation between Jew and Gentile?  We should notice that the social and political environment of Gentiles in the first century was populated by rampant paganism.  A plethora of gods and goddesses spread across the Roman Empire.  Ritual worship of these pagan gods included sacrifice of food to idols, sexual practices in fertility rites, non-kosher slaughter of animals and the use of blood in pagan affiliation with the gods.  No scholar debates these facts. These are precisely the actions that James mentions.  Is it not possible that James is enumerating those common pagan rituals which would necessarily have to be abandoned in order to be accepted into the community that worships YHWH?  It seems to me that such an exegesis cannot be ruled out.

There is another factor that points toward this understanding of James’ remark. Roman writings of the early centuries demonstrate that Rome did not attempt to bring about religious uniformity in its Empire.  Unlike Alexander, the Caesars allowed each conquered people to maintain its own religious practices and gods.  Rome’s only requirement was that any local gods be incorporated into the pantheon of all gods.  We can see the results of this policy in Paul’s speech on the Areopagus.  Rome’s objection to Judaism was not the Jewish belief in YHWH.  It was the fact the Jews claimed all other gods were false.  Rome objected to Judaism’s exclusion of all other gods.  Rome advocated religious tolerance.  Jews did not concur.

Doesn’t this also confirm that James cannot be establishing a second but equal class of worshippers of YHWH?  James is certainly Jewish.  As such, he would maintain the exclusiveness of his faith.  His perspective must be that there is but one true God.  Since God has revealed Himself in Hebrew Scripture, there cannot be another valid approach to the same God.  To suggest another way of worshipping YHWH would smack of the polytheism that Jews so adamantly opposed.  If there is but one God, then His ways are the only ways for following and worshipping Him.  Every orthodox Jew of the first century believed this.

We should note that reading James’ statement as an endorsement of two Torahs does precisely what Rome attempted to do.  It allows worship without conformity.  It breaks the unique claim of first century Judaism.  Would James actually overturn the very thing that gave Judaism its identity in the polytheistic world of the Roman Empire?  That seems highly unlikely.  It makes far more sense to read James’ remark as a prohibition against the syncretism of any idolatrous practice.  Gentiles are welcome into fellowship, a fellowship of the risen Lord governed by the revealed Torah.  But they must not bring any idolatrous rite with them, as they would naturally have done under Roman expectation.  Converting to Messianic Judaism is an all-or-nothing proposition – for James and for all other followers of YHWH.  The issue of syncretism was a constant threat among the Gentiles as Paul’s letters clearly demonstrate.  James’ Jewish consciousness is sensitive to this problem and therefore, he nips it in the bud.  Come on in, but leave the idolatry behind.

If this is what James is really saying, then the exegesis of this passage to justify ignoring Torah requirements as a sign of true fellowship with God and His people cannot be sustained.  And if it cannot be sustained, then the question arises:  Why does the Church assert that the Law no longer applies to believers in Christ?  Perhaps such an assertion didn’t arise from Scripture.  Perhaps such an assertion is far more self-serving for a “new” religion than it is consistent with the God of Israel.  History demonstrates that Christianity followed an anti-Semitic apologetic in order to distinguish itself as a new religion.  Separation from Jewish practices was crucial to this new identity.  It is far more likely, in my opinion, that Christians read their theology back into this text than it is that James the Jew would abandon his Judaism in favor of a “new” religion yet unnamed in the writings of the apostles.

Topical Index:  Torah, Acts 15:19-20, law, grace, Gentiles, paganism