The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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John T
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by John T »

John2 wrote:
To get back to Hegesippus, who I'm becoming convinced is our best source for Jewish Christianity, John T, what do you make of his statement in EH 4.22 that:
The same writer also records the ancient heresies which arose among the Jews, in the following words: “There were, moreover, various opinions in the circumcision, among the children of Israel. The following were those that were opposed to the tribe of Judah and the Christ: Essenes, Galileans, Hemerobaptists, Masbothæans, Samaritans, Sadducees, Pharisees.”
I used to think that maybe Jewish Christians developed out of the Essenes and this statement used to give me pause. The best I could think of at the time was that I hoped no one noticed this statement, or maybe Hegesippus was wrong, since he lived in the second century CE. But as I reexamine Hegesippus I find that he holds up well in other matters (there is only one other issue I want to bring up, regarding the death of James in his and Josephus' accounts, which I'm still mulling over) and I'm inclined to take the above statement at face value now. Maybe the Essenes still had some influence on Jewish Christians, but according to Hegesippus they were opposed to "the Christ."
That's a lot to consider.

Where to begin?

Hegesippus, the trusted historian, assures us that the leaders of the Judaeo-Christian church up to the time of Trajan (117 A.D.) were from the family blood line of Jesus. Keep in mind, the children of Israel from the time of Moses had been taught that the messiah must come from the tribe of Judah. During the time of Jesus, each of the seven sects had their own check-off list as to the job qualifications/abilities of the messiah. The church in Jerusalem believed Jesus was a perfect fit due to the resurrection (among other things) the other sects including the Essenes did not.

I would venture what Hegesippus was trying to say in EH 4.22 is that Judaeo-Christians were opposed by other messianic sects because the Christians claimed the messiah already came and went and would soon to return, while the others believed he had not yet appeared. Sure, they had differing opinions over the identification/qualifications of the messiah, over circumcision, the proper worship of God and no doubt a slew of other rituals but that is not to say the Christians and Essenes were sworn enemies to the same extend as the Essenes and Hasmonean priesthood was.

I still believe, those in the Essene camp (proto-Christians) that accepted the resurrection story of Jesus grafted into the Jesus family and fled to Pella before the destruction of the temple.

I read EH 4.22 as a polemic on circumcision, i.e. proper blood line of Jesus. Eusebius reads it as heresy because the Ebonites assert Jesus was begotten of Joseph and not a virgin birth by the holy spirit.

The meaning of baptism was another bone of contention. The Essenes viewed ritual bathing as a sign of purity, Christians viewed baptism as a sign of repentance yet, both believed in a future resurrection and judgement based on predestination. On a side note, Epiphanius ("Panarion," i., heresy xvii.) says that the Hemerobaptists deny future salvation to him who does not undergo baptism daily.

I believe the followers of Jesus thought he was the same messiah that the Essenes were expecting in 4Q521 and IIQ13. If so, that suggests (among other things) that Christianity was a schism from the Essenes. The C14 dating of the DSS does nothing to discount the fact that the Essenes came first and then Judaeo-Christianity.

You make a lot of good points which gives me a lot to ponder.
Be as that may, for me, it still comes down to compare/contrast the doctrine of predestination as taught by the Essenes, Jesus, James the Just and Paul.

I edited this post. Too much to cover in one sitting.

Sincerely,

John T
Last edited by John T on Thu Jun 15, 2017 4:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
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John T
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

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Double post deleted.

Sorry about that.

John T
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John2
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by John2 »

Thanks for your thoughts, John T.
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by John2 »

You know, there is one other issue I've been thinking about regarding Hegesippus' account, and that is his statement that, "He [James] alone was permitted to enter the holy place." What does he mean by "holy place" (ἅγιον τόπον)? This is commonly interpreted to mean the holy of holies, and this is something else I've always accepted without giving it much thought. But now I'm thinking that it doesn't mean the holy of holies.

The same Greek words are used in Acts 21:28, and it doesn't appear to mean the holy of holies there.
Moreover, he [Paul] even brought Greeks into the temple [ἱερὸν] and has defiled this holy place [ἅγιον τόπον].

http://biblehub.com/interlinear/acts/21-28.htm


Here it appears to be another way of saying "the Temple," unless this means that Paul bringing Greeks into the Temple defiled only the holy of holies. But one of the comments on the biblehub, for example, says:
...that part of the temple, which they supposed Paul had brought Greeks or Gentiles into, could not be the most holy place, for into that only the high priest went, once a year; nor that part of the holy place called the court of the priests, for into that only priests went, and other Israelites were not admitted, unless on some particular occasions; as to lay hands on the sacrifice, for the slaying of it, or waving some part of it; but it must be either the court of the Israelites, or the court of the women, into which Paul, with the four men that had the vow, entered ...

http://biblehub.com/commentaries/acts/21-28.htm
And Lange says:
This expression is falsely interpreted as designating the holiest of holies. The expression may admit of such an interpretation, but the Jewish law forbids it. The acknowledged Nazarite might probably go with the priests into the temple proper ...

https://books.google.com/books?id=zdI3A ... us&f=false
This understanding seems to be supported by Hegesippus' following statement that "He used to enter the sanctuary [ἱερὸν] alone," which is the same word used for the Temple in Acts above.

And Bauckham seems to be on board with this too.
Hegesippus probably meant that James, because of his ascetic sanctity and because he dressed like the priests in linen, was the only man other than the priests who was allowed to enter the holy place ... So the opening statement of the passage quoted above from Epiphanius, Pan. 78.13 is clearly an interpretive re-writing of the first nine words of the passage just quoted from Hegesippus ... This secondary interpretation of Hegesippus therefore supposes that James was permitted to officiate on the day of atonement as only the high priest may, entering the holy of holies as if he were high priest.

https://books.google.com/books?id=OdAVD ... es&f=false
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outhouse
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by outhouse »

John T wrote:
Where to begin?


John T

Explain why a group of Galilean would not be flushed out of Jerusalem, when Paul was originally hired to hunt down these early members?

Jerusalem was a Hellenistic city, and to the residents Galileans were trouble makers. Not a city for blasphemous preaching about a son of god by Galilean peasants.
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DCHindley
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by DCHindley »

outhouse wrote:
John T wrote:Where to begin?
Explain why a group of Galilean would not be flushed out of Jerusalem, when Paul was originally hired to hunt down these early members?

Jerusalem was a Hellenistic city, and to the residents Galileans were trouble makers. Not a city for blasphemous preaching about a son of god by Galilean peasants.


The bigger the town the easier I would think it would be for dissident groups to "hide out." Yet even there the locals might detect something odd or extremely radical about them and bring them to the attention of the city magistrates, who would likely do something about it if they perceived it as a real threat to the Judean people. Some of these may have been tried in absentia if they could not be located. Acts says Paul went to cities in Syria with warrants issued by the Judean HP to arrest and bring Jesus followers back to Jerusalem for punishment, so they were already tried in absentia.

I think in that period the Judean HP served as the Ethnarch in charge of Judean peoples wherever they resided within the Roman empire. In Hellenized cities Judeans were permitted to operate their own courts and local Judean leaders had some say in how Judeans should interact with local townsfolk. We really don't know whether the leaders of those Judean communities could, or would, arrest and bind over folks tried in absentia by the HP in Jerusalem, but they might have done so if these folks were perceived to be a danger to their own communities. Sounds political to me.

DCH
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John T
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by John T »

outhouse wrote:
John T wrote:
Where to begin?


John T

Explain why a group of Galilean would not be flushed out of Jerusalem, when Paul was originally hired to hunt down these early members?

Jerusalem was a Hellenistic city, and to the residents Galileans were trouble makers. Not a city for blasphemous preaching about a son of god by Galilean peasants.
The Essenes were a protected class of citizens under King Herod. Did his heirs continue the practice?

All evidence points to James not being banned from the temple let alone the city walls of Jerusalem because after all, Paul places James in Jerusalem around 50 A.D. e.g. Acts 15 and Galatians 2.
Perhaps (just perhaps), James being an Essene, he could have had a pardon from Paul's campaign against Judaeo-Christian heretics and he never had to flee to Syria in the first place.

Be as that may, this O.P. is about the Jerusalem Church after 70 CE not about how James the Just was able to avoid Paul's tiny posse and short-lived persecution of Christians that ended 35 years earlier.

If you want to talk about how James could hide in plain sight from 30-62 A.D. well, that would be a welcome discussion but I think it should be dealt with on another thread.

Sincerely,

John T
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
outhouse
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by outhouse »

John T wrote:All evidence points to James not being banned from the temple

They let anyone in, it was made to bring money in
John2
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

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I'm thinking more about the "after 70 CE" part of this thread, and aside from Hegesippus, who I now think gives the best account of (at least Jewish) Christianity from c. 30 CE to c. 115 CE, there isn't a whole lot there, but the next best thing appears to be Hegesippus' contemporary Justin Martyr, who says that there were (presumably Jewish) were persecuted by Bar Kokhba (First Apology 31), and that would take us down to c. 135 CE. However, I'm presently leaning towards the idea that Bar Kokhba did not capture Aelia Capitolina (i.e., Jerusalem), so I would assume this persecution did not include any Jewish Christians living there (if there even were any).

Harkabi writes:
Bar Kokhba had several successes, most preeminently, according to the accepted view, the conquest of Jerusalem. The Jewish sources have no mention of a conquest of Jerusalem nor of a reconquest by the Romans. For such an achievement by Bar Kokhba, the primary evidence has been the coins on which the name Jerusalem is impressed. From numismatic findings, however, we learn that while numerous "Kuzbi coins" (as they were called by the sages) have been discovered in the Hills of Judea and in Hebron, only one from the time of Bar Kokhba was identified among the approximately 15,000 uncovered since 1967 in the excavations of Jerusalem. it seems likely that had there been a garrison from Bar Kokhba's army in Jerusalem, or had Jewish resettlement there commenced, there would remain a quantity of Kuzbi coins. Thus some scholars have proposed that Jerusalem was not conquered and that the expression on the coins, "For the freedom of Jerusalem," served as a slogan in the struggle, a goal to which the Jews aspired.

https://books.google.com/books?id=rb00W ... em&f=false
I've already gotten the impression that there weren't any Jews in Jerusalem between 70 CE and the founding of Aelia Capitolina, but I noted earlier that Epiphanius places Jewish Christians in the latter in Weights and Measures 14-15:
And he [Hadrian] took the Aquila mentioned above, who was a Greek interpreter, since Hadrian also was a Greek -now Aquila was related to the king by marriage and was from Sinope in Pontus- and he established him there in Jerusalem as overseer of the work of building the city. And he gave to the city that was being built his own name and the appellation of the royal title. For as he was named Aelius Hadrian, so he also named the city Aelia. So Aquila, while he was in Jerusalem, also saw the disciples of the disciples of the apostles flourishing in the faith and working great signs, healings, and other miracles. For they were such as had come back from the city of Pella to Jerusalem and were living there and teaching. For when the city was about to be taken and destroyed by the Romans, it was revealed in advance to all the disciples by an angel of God that they should remove from the city, as it was going to be completely destroyed. They sojourned as emigrants in Pella, the city above mentioned, in Transjordania. And this city is said to be of the Decapolis. But after the destruction of Jerusalem, when they had returned to Jerusalem, as I have said, they wrought great signs, as I have already said.

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/epiph ... 3_text.htm


I can't tell exactly when this return to Jerusalem happened (by any Jews), but Jewish Christians are said to have been there at least by the time Aquila arrived there to oversee "the work of building the city," which could be c. 130 CE, when Aelia was first being constructed (and which provoked the Bar Kokhba revolt), or after the revolt (i.e., sometime after 135 CE), but I would lean towards the latter (but then that doesn't fit with Hadrian's ban on Jews entering Jerusalem after 135 CE).

And this bumps into Eusebius' list of Jewish bishops of the Jerusalem Church in EH 4.5.
The chronology of the bishops of Jerusalem I have nowhere found preserved in writing; for tradition says that they were all short lived. But I have learned this much from writings, that until the siege of the Jews, which took place under Adrian, there were fifteen bishops in succession there, all of whom are said to have been of Hebrew descent, and to have received the knowledge of Christ in purity, so that they were approved by those who were able to judge of such matters, and were deemed worthy of the episcopate. For their whole church consisted then of believing Hebrews who continued from the days of the apostles until the siege which took place at this time; in which siege the Jews, having again rebelled against the Romans, were conquered after severe battles. But since the bishops of the circumcision ceased at this time, it is proper to give here a list of their names from the beginning. The first, then, was James, the so-called brother of the Lord; the second, Symeon; the third, Justus; the fourth, Zacchæus; the fifth, Tobias; the sixth, Benjamin; the seventh, John; the eighth, Matthias; the ninth, Philip; the tenth, Seneca; the eleventh, Justus; the twelfth, Levi; the thirteenth, Ephres; the fourteenth, Joseph; and finally, the fifteenth, Judas. These are the bishops of Jerusalem that lived between the age of the apostles and the time referred to, all of them belonging to the circumcision.
But despite his comment that "there were fifteen bishops in succession there," I don't get the impression that "there" means that these bishops were all literally in Jerusalem, because not only does it appear that no Jews lived in Jerusalem between 70 CE and c.135 CE (though I suppose some could have), Eusebius himself says that there weren't any Jewish Christians in Jerusalem and Judea (at least for a certain period of time) after 70 CE, as he says in EH 3.5:
But the rest of the apostles [after James died], who had been incessantly plotted against with a view to their destruction, and had been driven out of the land of Judea, went unto all nations to preach the Gospel, relying upon the power of Christ, who had said to them, “Go and make disciples of all the nations in my name.”

But the people of the church in Jerusalem had been commanded by a revelation, vouchsafed to approved men there before the war, to leave the city and to dwell in a certain town of Perea called Pella. And when those that believed in Christ had come there from Jerusalem, then, as if the royal city of the Jews and the whole land of Judea were entirely destitute of holy men, the judgment of God at length overtook those who had committed such outrages against Christ and his apostles, and totally destroyed that generation of impious men.
So even according to Eusebius himself there were not literally "fifteen bishops in succession" in Jerusalem. The only question is when they came back, and that means asking when they (or any Jews) could come back, and that appears to be no earlier than the founding of Aelia Capitolina c. 130 CE, though I reckon there could have been Jewish Christians who lived elsewhere in Judea before this time like other Jews did, and that these are the (presumably Jewish) Christians Justin Martyr says were persecuted by Bar Kokhba.

And maybe they did come back to Jerusalem sometime between 70 CE and 135 CE, as Charlesworth supposes about other Jews.
Little is directly known about the Jewish population of Jerusalem between the two revolts ... Jerusalem, however, became a camp for the tenth legion, Legio X Fretensis. This would not have automatically implied the exclusion of the Jewish population from the city, the camp would normally rely upon locals for produce and labor. Moreover, Hadrian's ban on Jews entering Jerusalem after Bar Kokhba presupposes that there had been a Jewish population in and around Jerusalem prior to the Second Revolt.

https://books.google.com/books?id=QoIS7 ... an&f=false
So I suppose the best we can say is that at some point after 70 CE some Jewish Christians returned to Jerusalem. But they could not have been there for long since Hadrian banned all Jews from living in Jerusalem after 135 CE. So it looks to me like Jewish Christians, at least in Judea, suffered from their fellow Jews and the Romans from c. 30 CE and up to the 66-70 CE war, then again during the Kitos revolt (which is around the time that Simon bar Clophas was killed), and then again during and after the Bar Kokhba revolt, so it is not surprising that they seem to fade away (at least in Judea) after all this.
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John2
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by John2 »

Regarding Charlesworth's supposition above, I came across this comment by Lissak:
The area of Jerusalem and its environs ... was handed over to the Tenth Legion [after the 66-70 CE war]; Jews who remained in the nearby rural areas became tenants of the legion's soldiers and were required to supply the legion's supplies.

https://books.google.com/books?id=DPnCC ... on&f=false
This would be in keeping with the archeological record that Magness (2012) mentions:
Recent excavations at Shu'afat on Jerusalem's northern outskirts have brought to light a Jewish settlement that dates to the period between the two revolts (70 to 135), the first ever discovered within the city's vicinity ... The evidence of a relatively prosperous, Romanized lifestyle combined with Jewish purity observance suggests that this was a settlement of elite families including priests who remained as close as possible to Jerusalem after 70, perhaps awaiting the rebuilding of the Temple.

https://books.google.com/books?id=VecxA ... 35&f=false
Footnote 64 for this says that this settlement "is located four kilometers north of Jerusalem, along the early Roman road to Nablus."

So again the question is when did Jews come back to Jerusalem proper, and I'm not sure that's possible to answer. Epiphanius' account of Aquila seeing Jewish Christians there around the time of the founding of Aelia Capitolina is the only thing I can think of offhand that places any Jews in Jerusalem between the 66-70 CE war and the Bar Kokhba revolt.

And now that I think about it, maybe the Jewish Christians Epiphanius says were in Jerusalem lived in the rural area around it like these other Jews did and not in the city proper. That would make sense given his statement that Aquila went there to oversee "the work of building the city," for how could there have been any Jews living in a city that wasn't built yet?

What I want to do now is re-read Alon's The Jews in Their Land in the Talmudic Age, which I have at home but haven't read in a long time. I reckon if there is any other evidence of Jewish settlement in Jerusalem between these wars he would mention it.
Last edited by John2 on Wed Oct 09, 2019 2:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
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