A FORUM ON THE GOSPEL AND THE JEWISH PEOPLE Issue 45 / 2005 We Have Found the Messiah Jewish Believers in Jesus in Antiquity BY OSCAR SKARSAUNE MISHKAN I SSUE 45 / 2005 Caspari Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies · Jerusalem All Rights Reserved. For permissions please contact [email protected] Mishkan issue 45, 2005 Published by Caspari Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies, Steve Engstrom, CEO, P.O.Box 147, Wheaton, IL 60189, USA Copyright © Caspari Center, unless otherwise stated Graphic design: Friis Grafik Cover design: Heidi Tohmola Printed by Evangel Press, 2000 Evangel Way, Nappanee, IN 46550, USA ISSN 0792-0474 General Editor: Kai Kjær-Hansen (D.D., Lund University), International Coordinator of Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism (LCJE), Denmark Linguistic Editor: Cindy Osborne, Caspari Center, USA Caspari Center Publishing Board: Dr. Reidar Hvalvik, Chair Dr. James Galvin, Deputy Chair Dr. Preben Lindøe Dr. Jeffrey Greenberg All Scripture quotations are from NRSV unless otherwise marked. New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Subscriptions and back issues: Caspari Center, P.O.Box 147, Wheaton, IL 60189, USA www.caspari.com/mishkan email: [email protected] Pages 1-3.indd 2 02-11-05, 20:57 Contents Author’s Preface . 5 1. In the Beginning … . 7 2. Jews, Gentiles, and the Torah . 30 3. Jewish Believers in the Land of Israel . 39 4. Jewish Believers in the Eastern Diaspora . 50 5. From Antioch to Gaul . 56 6. From Alexandria to Carthage . 74 7. Constantine and His Legacy . 79 8. The Land of Israel under Byzantine Rule . 86 9. Jewish Believers East of Antioch . 91 10. Jewish Believers in Africa and Arabia . 97 11. From Asia Minor to Spain . 99 12. In Conclusion . 106 A Final Summary: The Gist of This Book . 109 Pages 1-3.indd 3 02-11-05, 20:57 We have found the Messiah.indd 4 02-11-05, 20:57 5 Author’s Preface First, let me say what this book is not. It is not a scholarly discourse on the early history of the Jewish believers in Jesus, weighing different theories and points of view. It is not a thoroughly argued history of Jewish believ- ers in Jesus, building up a solid case for the version of the story told here, documenting each step of the argument by learned notes. It is neither of these things. The background of this book is an international history project entitled A History of Jewish Believers in Jesus – The Early Centuries, which will be published in the near future. In that book, sixteen authors have com- bined their insight and research to produce precisely that book which the present book is not. In A History of Jewish Believers the reader will find abundant references, solid documentation, closely argued cases regard- ing controversial questions, and pioneering contributions to ongoing research. All the scholarly effort put into that volume is a constant back- drop to the present book. This book is a simple rendering, mostly in narrative form, of the story of Jewish believers in the early centuries – as I came to see this story, having finished the large volume of A History of Jewish Believers. I learned a lot from my fifteen co-authors in the History. I also learned a lot during my own research for my contributions to the volume. I should emphasize very strongly that the story told in the present book is the story as I personally came to see it. I suspect none of my fifteen co-authors would endorse each and every aspect of the story as I tell it. Some of them might even disagree fundamentally. Given the complexity of the problems and the scarcity of available source material, this can hardly be otherwise. My first priority in this book has therefore been to tell my story well, from a narrative point of view. Underpinning argument has been kept to the absolute minimum. Some readers with a scholarly bent may even think it has been kept below that level! Readers who seek more of this are referred here, once and for all, to the large forthcoming volume of the History. In that book there are also copious references to primary sources, in the original languages as well as in English translation. In the present book all that has been left out. My thinly veiled agenda in doing so is, of course, to whet the reader’s appetite for the greater book. We have found the Messiah.indd 5 02-11-05, 20:57 6 Let me add a few words on the plan of the present book. In the first six chapters I treat the story of Jewish believers before Constantine. In chap- ters eight through eleven I treat the era after Constantine. The reason for this chronological divide midway through the book is that conditions for Jewish believers changed considerably after Constantine. Source material is also less forthcoming after Constantine than before, which means that the pace of the story quickens after Constantine. There is, sadly, less to tell. Finally, let me say who this story is about. I have chosen, in a great majority of settings, to call my subjects “Jewish believers in Jesus,” not “Jewish Christians.” When scholars speak about “Jewish Christians,” they often speak about Jewish persons who believed in Jesus and who, combined with this faith, kept a Jewish lifestyle and still considered them- selves Jewish. By this definition there were Jewish believers in Jesus who cannot be called Jewish Christians, because they did not keep a Jewish lifestyle. Or let us put it the other way around: There were Jewish believ- WE HAVE FOUND THE MESSIAH ers in Jesus who were so successfully assimilated into predominantly gen- tile Christian communities that their Jewishness was hardly visible. These people are not excluded from this story (as they very often are). I give “Jewish believer in Jesus” a purely ethnic definition; by this term I mean any Jewish person – Jewish by birth or conversion – who came to believe that Jesus is the Savior. With these remarks I am ready to begin my story. Oskar Skarsaune Oslo, 2005 We have found the Messiah.indd 6 02-11-05, 20:57 7 1. In the Beginning… In the beginning there was Jesus. He was born to a family who regarded themselves as David’s offspring. Every boy-child, especially the first-born, in such a family would naturally play with the thought, the promised Anointed One of David’s seed – could that be me? According to Luke, the boy Jesus seems to have had a very strong conviction of this. Later, when he was baptized by John, he had a strong experience of being anointed as Messiah when the Spirit of God descended upon him and he heard the heavenly voice proclaim him God’s Son. From then on, he acted, not as the already enthroned Messiah, but as the designated Messiah. His ministry from this point on had the function of preparing for his own enthronement as the Messiah. He became, in a way, his own forerunner. He was – or became – aware, however, that this enthronement would entail a painful passage through suffering and death. In this, his picture of the Messiah’s career was markedly different from that of many of his contemporaries, particularly that of his own disciples. They simply did not understand him on this score. As for himself, Jesus seems to have found the key to his own messianic career in the portrait of the Suffering Servant of God in Isaiah 53, and possibly also in the several portraits of the Suffering Righteous Ones in the Psalms. He warned his disciples that following him through his final enthronement as Messiah would entail suffering, pain, and even death on their part as well. Even so, we see them stricken by grief, disappointment, and shock when these predictions and warnings come true. “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel … but now it is the third day, already, since his death” (Luke 24:21, paraphrased). On the third day, however, he ap- peared to some of his female and male disciples in such a way that they were convinced he had risen from the dead. The discovery that his tomb was empty reinforced this interpretation of his appearances. At once the situation was totally changed. What had seemed like the utter failure of yet another messianic pretender was now seen in a completely different light. This messianic pretender had been triumphantly vindicated. His ris- ing from the dead, his ascension to heaven, and his enthronement at the Father’s right hand in heaven were seen as a truly messianic enthrone- ment. Jesus had attained the throne of the Messiah, had entered his We have found the Messiah.indd 7 02-11-05, 20:57 8 messianic reign, through suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, and heavenly enthronement at the Father’s right hand! The Son of God Incarnate There was one aspect of Jesus which now appeared in a different light to his disciples. During his ministry, he had every now and then spoken of himself, and even acted, as if he were more than an ultimate representa- tive of God; he spoke and acted as if he were the incarnate Wisdom of God in person.