From The Vault: Christian Boundary Markers I

The more things change the more they stay the same. As Qohelet wrote so long ago: truly, there is nothing new under the sun…

There are several common assumptions among many lay Christians concerning the persons of the Bible and their wordviews that are just plain flat-out wrong. These misconceptions lead to various levels of incorrect interpretation. One of these prominent assumptions concerns the religion of the Jewish people during the first century. To exaggerate and reduce, it goes something like this: there was only one form of legalistic Judaism in the first century, everyone practiced the exact same faith, like robots the whole nation of Israel chased after the Law hoping they could do enough works to gain salvation.

Anyone practicing Jewish religion was a hypocritical scribe or Pharisee. Unfortunately, for that interpretive approach the evidence is much more complicated.

A word that would characterize the above approach would be homogeneous or monolithic: the Jewish faith was the same no matter where you looked or went. However, scholars are now certain that great diversity actually characterized Jewish religion in the first century CE and the last centuries BCE. This means first century Judaism was heterogeneous, and in fact, many scholars will refer to the religion of that time as Judaism(s) to try and express its diverse nature.

Not only was the religion of the Jews multifaceted and complicated, but it may be that many ethnic Jews did not even practice the legalistic faith that so many modern Christians presuppose other than the three main festivals. For example, Hillel the Elder is regarded as one of the greatest figures in all of Jewish History. In his lifetime he emerged from humble beginnings in Babylon to the title of “Nasi” in Jerusalem; a position that combined both religious and secular leadership, and was the highest place of leadership in Jewish Society during the time of the Second Temple. Hillel was elected to in 31 BCE and held until his death in 10 CE, a period that covers the reign of King Herod and the early childhood of Jesus

The Talmud tells of a heavenly voice announcing: “There is among you one man who would deserve that the Divine Spirit rest upon him but his generation is not worthy of it. Thereupon all the eyes were fixed upon Hillel the Elder” (Talmud, Sotah 48b). Hillel agonized about returning to Jerusalem because of the chaos and lack of Torah observance, but he finally concluded that he should go; he said, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” (Talmud, Avot 1:14).

Hillel’s return to Jerusalem in the Talmud is compared to Ezra in the Hebrew Bible:

In ancient days when the Torah was forgotten from Israel,
Ezra came up from Babylon and reestablished it
Then it was again forgotten
Until Hillel the Babylonian came up and reestablished it. (Talmud, Sukkah 20a)

At this point we have two observations about Second Temple Judaism: 1) It was a complicated and multifaceted religion 2) It seems there may have been many not following Torah.

At the same time within this complicated scenario pretty much anything that could be interpreted was up for discussion: marriage, what books had authority, Sabbath laws, hand washing, the Temple and its priesthood, the afterlife, the existence of angels, etc., etc. Even among groups that agreed on a great deal there was still much arguing. The banner example is the arguments between the house of Hillel and the house of Shammai, two schools that were both Pharasaic, and strongly disagreed with each other over a variety of points.

From the primary sources we can ascertain a number of groups and characters acting within different Jewish groups; some for religious purposes and some for other reasons. For example:

* Pharisees
* Saducees
* Essenes
* Dead Sea community
* Sicarii
* Zealots
* Josephus’ Fourth Philosophic group
* John the Baptist
* Bannus (a hermit teacher reported by Josephus)
* Simon in Perea (a slave and messianic claimant who revolted against the son of Herod the Great)
* Athronges in Judea ( a shepherd who also revolted against Herod’s son and was even crowned)
* Judas the Galilean (acts 5:37)
* “the Egyptian” (Acts 21:38; Josephus also mentions “the Egyptian” a supposed prophet, who lead 4000 men into the desert)
* Simon bar Giora (Idumean general who fought against Eleazar the high priest in civil war within Jerusalem while it was being besieged by the Romans outside!)
* Theudas (Acts 5:36)
* Jesus of Nazareth (Uh, you may have heard of this guy)

However, among the diversity of beliefs and practices that existed–and are often ignored or unknown by modern Christians–there did exist some similarities:

1. Sabbath observance
2. Food laws
3. Circumcision.

These three were the common boundary markers of ethnic Jews in the first century, and were ubiquitous because not only did they serve a religious function, but they also served a social function setting the Jewish people visibly apart from their Gentile neighbors. I would also add to the list the importance of Torah and Temple for many of the religious groups.

What’s important to understand here is that the three boundary markers originally began as legitimate religious practices and symbols but for some had morphed into excluding social identity markers. This was not the first time that legitimate symbols changed into idols in the history of religion… nor the last as we shall see.

For example, the first Temple in Jerusalem at one time was the place of God’s glory and name but by the seventh century BCE the prophet Jeremiah would write, “Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” What was once the great place of worship to God had become a false symbol, an idol, a mistaken assumption that the Jewish people could live their life any way they chose, treat people terribly, lie, cheat, steal, oppress the foreigner, and yet come to the Temple and everything would be alright. Throughout the Hebrew Bible many of the religious institutions at some point are negatively appraised, e.g., the Temple in Jeremiah, the priests in Malachi. The point of Yahweh’s special relationship with Israel was a whole lot more than merely religious practice and furniture (HINT: it still is!).

So what’s the point? First-century religious diversity, Jews not practicing Torah, and the legitimate symbols of one era becoming the false idols of another?

In much the same way that first century Judaism is often misunderstood and mistakenly reduced I fear modern Christianity is similarly painted with a singular broad stroke that covers many important differences and practices; however, this is a point for another discussion.

What is important for the present purposes is how modern Christianity in some forms has turned the legitimate practices and symbols of one era into legalistic symbols and has adopted its own external boundary markers:

1. Sunday morning attendance
2. Abstaining from several things
3. The new circumcision – a hyper historical attitude towards the Bible

For some, it no longer matters how you live your life on a daily basis. What sort of ethics you have at work. If you care for the orphan and the widow, and help the weak and oppressed. That’s legalism. Nope, what’s important is going to church on Sunday morning. Don’t drink, don’t chew, and don’t go with girls who do. And finally, view the Bible under the categories of Troeltsch et al. Then you are a serious Christian.

You could probably in many instances add anti-homosexual and anti-intellectual to the Christian boundary marker list. If you were going to put things in a nutshell: this list is a large reason why Christianity is dying in NA; why much of the new generation views Christians with suspicion, and a large number of persons that do not come to church label Christians as hypocritical and judgmental. You’ll also notice no mention of Jesus in the list.

That last one should be a problem…