The Early Christians conformed to the Mosaic law, but like Jesus, may not have held to all of the Pentateuch. in the Panarian, Epiphanius writes: "18:7 Nor do they accept Moses' Pentateuch in its entirety; they reject certain sayings." Although they were mostly all Hebrews at the outset, Christ's teachings made them a sect within a
broad range of Hebrews. We'll delineate the obvious deviations from the Pentateuch we would expect to find with Early Christian Ebioneans. Indeed we expect to find these deviations with
all Christians.
1) Jewish Supremacism
We don't think Christians in general or the Ebionaens in particular accept Moses' Pentateuch in its entirety. For example, Christians reject the parts used to justify Jewish Supremacism:
- Deuteronomy 28: 1, 10; 15: 6.
- Genesis 27: 28-29; Deuteronomy 6: 10-11.
- Deuteronomy 11: 23, 25: 2: 25.
- Deuteronomy 23:19-20.
f - Deuteronomy 7: 2, 16.
- Deuteronomy 20: 10-14, 16-17.
Christians reject the mercyless parts of the Pentaeuch, for example:
And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:
(Deut. 7:2 [KJV])
2) End of sacrifices
Mark 12:33 [KJV] denigrates the sacrifices but does not exclude them. But in John 2:14-16 Jesus drives the money-changers out of the temple,
and also the animals used for sacrifices:
And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables;
And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise. (John 2:14-16 [KJV])
Whipping bankers is always a good idea, but why bother with the animals if you're not making a statement? We certainly see no "Jesus' pro-sacrifice position in the NT". John makes it explicit that it's all the animals, but it's in Matthew too:
And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. (Matthew 21:12-13 [KJV])
And Matthew 12:7 [KJV] is explicitly anti-sacrifice to our eyes:
But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. (Matthew 12:7 [KJV])
Elsje Massyn May 16, 2023 has an interesting point of view on this:
Jesus did not have to abolish something His Father never instituted. He came to convey an error in Judaism that has become engrained in the theological thought patterns of Jewish leaders that "there is no remission of sin without shedding of blood" which was a lie from the beginning. Amos 6:6-7 / Matthew 12: 7 would not say: "I DO WANT MERCY NOT SACRIFICE" If He ever wanted Sacrifice. God's mind is not twisted that He cannot remember what He said. It's the lying pens of the Scribes and Pharisees Jeremiah 8:8 that have twisted God's words for thousands of years. God CLEARLY says in Jeremiah 7: 22-23 HE NEVER INSTRUCTED LAWS W.R.T. SACRIFICES when He lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Yeshua's main purpose was to find the Lost Sheep of Israel, teach the TRUE MESSAGE of God the Father's compassion and love for them and break down the sacrificial temple system that falsely held them guilty until bloodshed of an animal was proven in sacrifice. God NEVER added 600+ laws.
Peter in the Clementine Homilies
details the logic of the Ebionaens opposition to the sacrifices. To which we add (Hos. 6:6):
For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6 [KJV])
3) Probibition on mixed marriages
We conjecture that Early Christians rejected:
Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. (Deut. 7:3 [KJV])
4) Softer Conversion
AFAIK conversion which was very difficult/prohibited in the Pentateuch, even though there were lots of exception by ways of mixed marriages (see 3 above).
Circumcision was a hugely painful subject under the Jamesian church, which insisted on it, but it would not be surprising if the process of softened under later both Ebionaen and Nazorean Christianity. Eventually it could be argued that it was replaced by baptism. It is specifically cited it as an observance of the Ebionaens, although we can't say if it was unique to them; it may even have been a show of their opposition to Paulunism.
Kararites, Essenes and Samaratains are all Hebrews, as are the Early Christians keeping to Mosaic law (unlike Paul). The Sadduccees and the Pharasees did not have a monopoly in the definition of who is a Hebrew; "rejecting large parts of the Torah/OT" sounds like a ritualistic accusation. The Essenes rejected anything to do with the corrupt temple including the sacrifices, "Law" or not. (Interestingly, Ephanius points to the Ebionaens adhering to "Judaism's Law of the Sabbath, circumcision, and all the other Jewish and
Samaritan observances" - any debate that ignores
Samaritan concepts is strange to us.)
5) Ebionaen Christians were not strict in their observance like 4th way Jews
Josephus spoke of Essenes, Sadducees and Pharisees, and a 4th way sect of "Jews":
But of the fourth sect of Jewish philosophy, Judas the Galilean was the author. These men agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord. (Antiquities of the Jews 18.1. 6.)
The wikipedia entry is interesting: Judas and Zealotry
In Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus states that Judas, along with Zadok the Pharisee, founded the "fourth sect" of 1st century Judaism [3] .... Josephus blamed this fourth sect, which he called the Zealots, for the First Jewish–Roman War of 66-73 AD, although some modern scholars [4: Reza Aslan, Zealot] think they were actually different groups: Judas & Zaddok's group of zealots were theocratic nationalists who preached that God alone was the ruler of Israel and urged that no taxes should be paid to Rome.[4]
So we distinguish Ebionaen Christians from what we will call Zealots, and already have in the OP that they were not Zealots: i.e. they did not oppose paying taxes to Rome (Matt. 22:21). Similarly the Essenes (friends of the Ebionaens) were not strict in their observance: they hated the Pharisees and Sadducees, and were anti-sacrifice and anti-temple. And given the interesting viewpoint above, anti-sacrifice might have been common.
6) We ignore traditions
There are a whole range of traditions that we ignore: ritual mourning, birth observances, marriage contracts, divorce etc. We simply observe that they cannot be claimed to be core beliefs of the Hebrews if some groups like the Essenes did not also accept them. And laws would not be continued by Christians if Jesus opposed them.
PS: See also
the Ebionites were Law Observant but NOT Torah Observant in the Ritualistic Manner of the Jews.
