The Apostle Paul and the Jewish-Christian Schism

““For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.” -Ephesians 2:14-16

There’s one particular topic in early Christian history that I find immensely fascinating.

This fascination was sparked a few years back when I read John Howard Yoder’s The Jewish Christian Schism Revisited.[1] Within this book, Yoder argues that the New Testament Church failed one of its earliest mission prerogatives, namely the keeping of unity between Israel and the Church. To his mind, Judaism and Christianity, now understood to be two major but separate world religions, never had to split out from one another. And while it seems entirely natural from our vantage point to think of both religions as ones that have always been distinct, this wasn’t originally the case.[2]

That is, for the first hundred years or so of the early church, Christianity and Judaism were sort-of the same thing.

Where Does Christianity Start and Judaism End?

How did Christianity and Judaism become two distinct religions?

Let us consider a condensed timeline of this schism as it happened within the first few centuries of the church:

During Jesus’ ministry, he and his disciples were regarded as messianic, or apocalyptic, Jews. Jesus was Jewish. The disciples were Jewish. And Jesus’ audience was almost exclusively a Jewish one. Even after Jesus’ death and resurrection, his early followers maintained their observation of Jewish practices like Temple sacrifices, eating kosher, and separation from the Gentiles. It wasn’t until after Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit that the early church began to shift their focus a bit.  

This shift didn’t come easily, however.

There was still quite a tension between Jewish followers of Jesus and Gentile proselytes who wished to follow Jesus as their Lord. This can be seen within the narrate of Peter visiting Cornelius’ household (Acts 10:1-48). Peter was sure that God would not want him mixing in with Gentiles as that would make him unclean according to the tradition of the elders. It took divine intervention in order to convince him otherwise. And even then, it was only after seeing the Spirit fall upon the confessing Gentile household that the apostle truly believed the Lord was moving in this way (Acts 11:13-18).

After this occurrence took place, a special council of the early church was held in Jerusalem. As the church was still almost exclusively comprised of self-identifying and practicing Jews, they had to figure out what Gentile believers in Jesus were supposed to do with Torah-law. Would they have to follow all of it as Jewish believers had been? Were they going to be required to bear the marks of circumcision? Would they have to eat kosher?

After much debate, a decision was made. Just like Jewish followers of Jesus were saved by grace through faith, and not by keeping the strict letter of the law, so too were Gentile believers in Jesus (Acts 15:7-11). Yet, in order for unity to be kept between Gentile converts and their new Jewish brothers and sisters, this council would require them to follow a few aspects of Torah. They were to “abstain only from things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from whatever has been strangled, and from blood.” (Acts 15:19-21). In other words, Gentile followers of Jesus didn’t have to get circumcised or eat a completely kosher diet, but they did have to abstain from that which would be so offensive it would cause Jewish believers to disfellowship from them.[3]

However, if the aims of the Jerusalem council had been unity, this decision did not solve all of the expected problems.

It would be unfair to characterize Jews who chose not to follow Jesus as villainous. It would also be unfair to claim that the groups of zealous Jews which opposed the early Christian church acted from a place of jealousy or pure hatred. No, in the eyes of many Jews, those who began to follow Jesus as their Christ were minim or Jews who held incorrect, unorthodox beliefs. It was also the case that many Jews of the Second Temple period understood that salvation in the Lord was extremely imminent. They expected a Messiah to show up, liberate them from foreign powers, re-establish the throne of David, and do so in their lifetimes. But with the Babylonian exile as a not-so-distant memory, many Jews of this era also believed that not observing Torah (as well as the traditions of the elders that expounded upon Torah) would lead to consequences and may push back the Day of the Lord’s arrival. If the nation followed God’s law, God might look favorably upon them and usher in His ultimate reign through a militant Messiah.[4] If the nation did not, God would delay his salvation.

Groups of minim threatened this hope.[5] So, zealous Jews felt that it was their God-given duty to correct the unorthodoxy of the Jesus followers. This often took place through teaching at synagogues or in other Christian gatherings (Romans 14:1-23, Galatians 2:1-10, 1 Timothy 4:1-5, Titus 1:10-12), but it did, on occasion, take more violent turns (Acts 5:17-42, Acts 7:54-60, Acts 21:17-36). That is to say, while Gentile and Jewish followers of Jesus were instructed to seek unity and togetherness, and to and understood such as a central part of following their Messiah (Ephesians 2:11-22, Galatians 3:23-29), many Jews believed that an orthodox expression of the religion demanded that they root-out and correct heresy within Israel so that God would bring about the Messianic Age.[6]

This divide became much worse at the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in A.D. 70.

Because the Jerusalem council, aided greatly by the missionary work of Paul, allowed Christianity to rapidly spread into the Gentile world, Gentile followers of Jesus began to greatly outnumber their Jewish brothers and sisters. And because Gentile believers were not tied down to the Temple or to ritual, the heart of Christianity moved away from the city of Jerusalem toward more foreign locations. When the Roman Emperor Titus’ troops arrived in Jerusalem to squash Jewish uprisings, Christians did not come to the aid of the zealous Jews defending the city from Rome. In fact, the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple was interpreted by some early Christians as a judgement from God upon Israel for rejecting Jesus as Messiah.

Tension between Rome and the Jewish people continued to rise. It came to its boiling point in A.D. 132 when Simon bar Kokhba led a revolt against Rome in hopes to take back control of the city of Jerusalem. This act, sometimes referred to as the Third Jewish War, lasted for several years and ultimately ended in the deaths of over 500,000 Jews and their complete expulsion from the city of Jerusalem. Christians, however, were allowed to remain in the city. And because Christians did not aid Simon bar Kokhba, the nation of Rome began to see Christianity not as a sect, or an offshoot of Judaism but as its own separate religion entirely. It didn’t matter that some Christians were technically Jewish; to Rome, Christianity and Judaism were now thought of as different systems of belief.[7]  

However, this did not mean that Christianity now had a stamp of approval from Rome.

Christian communities during this time came under scrutiny because of their refusal to participate in the imperial cult. Offering a sacrifice to a deified emperor would belittle the belief in a One true God. Yet, many Roman trade guilds required participation in such practices as a prerequisite to do business in the marketplace. So, in response, Christian leaders in the second century sought to appeal to Rome in hopes to receive a similar privilege as the Jews once had.

The Jewish people were granted religious exemption from participating in the imperial cult. This was given to them for three reasons: Judaism was an ancient religion that had deep roots, Rome wanted to prevent violent uprisings, and the Herodian dynasty kept pressure on Rome which allowed them such a privilege.[8] So, in response, many Church Fathers took up the task of arguing that Christianity was always the correct way of expressing the ancient religion found in Torah, and that the Jews were incapable of interpreting their holy books correctly.[9]

While their aims may have been noble, these writings by the Church Fathers became the fuel that allowed the fires of antisemitism to burn brightly for centuries.

Their aims were also ultimately futile as Roman persecution continued until Emperor Constantine’s conversion to the Christian religion in 312 A.D.

Meanwhile, after the loss of its Temple system, Judaism was beginning to change shape. Tannaitic Judaism had become the dominant expression of the faith, and Rabbi began working to unify the many factions of Judaism into one unified orthodoxy. Christians were moved from the category of minim to noserim (heretics). They were no longer to be corrected but cast out and ignored. Consequently, Christians were expelled from participating in the synagogues and Jews were forbidden to intermarry with them. And Christian religious texts, like the Gospels and the writings of Paul, were outlawed.[10]  

Christianity and Judaism were officially separated.

Paul, an Anti-Jewish Apostle?

The above summary might highlight how Judaism and Christianity officially split apart over the first few centuries of the early church, but didn’t Paul critique Judaism in his New Testament letters?

Would this, then, mean that the split between Christianity and Judaism happened at lot earlier, at least conceptually?

Paul definitely has some harsh words in his letters. For example, here’s Galatians 3:10-14:

“For all who rely on doing the works of the law are under a curse because it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not keep on doing everything written in the book of the law.” Now it is clear no one is justified before God by the law because the righteous one will live by faith. But the law is not based on faith, but the one who does the works of the law will live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (because it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”) in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles, so that we could receive the promise of the Spirit by faith.”

There are two ways one might go about interpreting this text and those like it.[11]

The traditional interpretation posits that Paul is arguing that Torah (the Law) lays a curse upon everyone who is unable to follow it exactly. If anyone does not render to God perfect obedience, they stand condemned. Therefore, if anyone is relying on their obedience to God through Torah, or their “works of the law,” they will never attain salvation as following the law in all ways is impossible. Paul then quotes Habakkuk 2:4, “the righteous will live by faith,” to remind the Galatians that the Old Testament itself tells us that salvation is by faith alone and understanding salvation in terms of “works” or “obedience” is misguided. Jesus’ work on the cross has also freed us from the necessity of finding salvation through obedience to the law as Christ paid the penalty of the law’s curse on our behalf through his death on the cross. Because of this, Jews and Gentiles alike can enjoy salvation because it’s faith in Christ that saves us, not obedience to Torah.  

Some other scholars read this text a little bit differently. Instead of understanding Paul as critiquing the misguided legalism found in the Judaism of his day, Paul is critiquing Jewish Christians who are claiming that God’s salvation in Christ is limited to only those who are “within the law.” That is, the apostle is arguing against ethnically Jewish believers who were asserting that Gentiles had to convert fully to Judaism in order to attain salvation in Christ. These Jewish Christians, those who claim to be “doing the works of the law,” are under a curse because they are holding to both a universal gospel (saved by faith alone) and an exclusive gospel (you must become a Jew and adopt the entirety of Torah to be saved). From this perspective, Paul is understood to be pointing out their inconsistencies in Galatians 3:12 by quoting Habakkuk 2:4. God’s approved person will have salvation in Jesus on the basis of their faith, not their ethnic identity. Paul then explains in Galatians 3:13-14 that faithful Jews who follow Christ as their Lord have no need to fear in the inclusion of Gentiles as ethnically Gentile because Jesus absorbed the curse into himself; and now, the people of God are made up of followers from all ethnic identities.[12]

Regardless of how you interpret Galatians 3:10-14, or other passages like it, we do not actually find Paul ever leveling a critique against Judaism itself. He surely critiques the legalism found within Judaism and he might also have critiqued the impulse of Jewish Christians in the first century who were claiming that Gentiles needed to become ethnically Jewish to experience salvation in Jesus. Yet Paul never critiques Judaism as a whole.

Paul was not an anti-Jewish apostle.

Paul himself was a Jew, and proud of his heritage. Paul understood Jesus as the culmination of Israel’s story in the Old Testament, as God’s Son, and was heavily burdened to see both his fellow Jews accept Jesus as Lord as well as the Gentiles who had been welcomed into God’s people through Jesus’ death.

Paul was also heavily burdened with the unity between Jewish and Gentile Christians, as we can see all over his writings (like the text that’s quoted at the very beginning of this post).

It is unfortunate that Paul’s writings are now taken by some to mean exactly the opposite of what he intended them to.

Conclusion

Did the New Testament Church fail?

Did the unity efforts of the Jerusalem council, as well as the writings of the Apostle Paul, not succeed in keeping Jews and Christians together? In a sense, they were not successful.

Nevertheless, the gospel still spread in the midst of disunity. And more, God’s mandate for unity still remains. Disunity is still eating away at God’s church all over the world. We as believers today would do well to learn from this history while striving for the type of unity that Jesus prayed for in John 17:23 within our churches even now:

[I am praying…] “that they may be completely one, so that the world will know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you have loved me.”

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[1] https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Christian-Revisited-Theology-Postcritical-2008-11-15/dp/B01FKRHRW6

[2] John Howard Yoder, The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited, (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 2003), 43-44.

[3] Many scholars actually think Acts 15:19-21 acts as a stand-in for all of Leviticus 17-18 which dives into the topics of sexual immorality, foods that have been strangled, and the consumption of blood in more detail.

[4] The Mishnah makes this belief clear in Sotah 9.15: “…Rabbi Pinehas ben Ya’ir says: Torah study leads to care in the performance of mitzvot. Care in the performance of mitzvot leads to diligence in their observance. Diligence leads to cleanliness of the soul. Cleanliness of the soul leads to abstention from all evil. Abstention from all evil leads to purity and the elimination of all base desires. Purity leads to piety. Piety leads to humility. Humility leads to fear of sin. Fear of sin leads to holiness. Holiness leads to the Divine Spirit. The Divine Spirit leads to the resurrection of the dead.” 

[5] N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 237.

[6] Which, according to first-century Judaism, hadn’t actually happened through Jesus.

[7] Lawrence H. Schiffman, “The Jewish-Christian Schism – Schisms in Jewish History: Part 4, ” published September 9, 2014, Accessed January 12, 2023. https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/daily-life-and-practice/the-jewish-christian-schism/, 3/5

[8] There may never have been a legal treaty drawn up with such language within it. But legal or not, these factors did allow the Jewish people to safely abstain from emperor worship between the time of Julius Caesar and their expulsion from Rome in the Third Jewish War. See: Tessa Rajak, “Was There a Roman Charter For the Jews?”, The Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 74 (1984), 107-123.

[9] See The Epistle of Barnabas, Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho, Ignatius’ letter to the Magnesians 8-10, and The Epistle to Diognetus ch. 3 as a few examples.

[10] Lawrence H. Schiffman, From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple & Rabbinic Judaism, (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav Publishing House, 1991), 154.  

[11] See also Galatians 2:15-21, Romans 3:21-31, Romans 9:30-10:4, Philippians 3:1-11

[12] Timothy G. Gombis, Paul: A Guide for the Perplexed, (London: T & T Clark, 2010), 89-93.