The Intertestamental Period: The Jewish Backgrounds and Interactions of Early Christianity with Judaism

Liberty University

The Intertestamental Period:
The Jewish Backgrounds and Interactions of Early Christianity with Judaism

A research paper submitted to Professor Laurie Schweinsberg
In Partial Fulfillment of the requirements For
The course NBST 510

Liberty baptist Theological seminary

By

Lynchburg, Virginia
December 8, 2013
Table of Contents “ Tractable Yebamoth 47b” Isidore Epstein Ed. Soncino Babylonian Talmud Electronic Ed. (London: The Soncino press, 1948). 10
Bibliography 25
Introduction
Students of church history often puzzled by the sharp contrast between the Jewishness of the writers and events of the New Testament on one hand and the definitively non-Jewish character of the Early Church after the apostolic period on the other hand. An appreciation of the Jewish background of the Early Church and knowledge of the development of Jewish-Christian relations in the first three centuries of the Christian era is therefore crucial if one desires to understand the parting of ways between Judaism and Christianity. These two sister faiths would become bitter enemies within a few centuries after the emergence of the Christian faith. Our study, while heavily relying and interacting with primary sources of the time, will endeavor to highlight the Jewish origin of Christianity, trace its development within Judaism, and chronicle its inexorable divorce from its Jewish roots and sister faith.
Setting the stage: the expansion of the Jewish Diaspora During the Persian occupation of Palestine (538-332 BC), many Jews decided to pass on the magnanimous offer of Cyrus allowing them to return to Palestine and chose to remain in Babylonia where subsequently, the Jewish population grew in influence over the centuries.1 Already during the Babylonian invasion and in the lifetime of the prophet Jeremiah, many Jews fled to Egypt, where they established substantial Jewish settlements. The Greek period (332-167 BC) saw the expansion of the Jewish Diaspora.2 The Newly founded city of Alexandria became a key center of Hellenistic Jewry, which produced the Greek version of the Old Testament called Septuagint.3 Syria also saw a significant increase in its Jewish population. The assimilation of Greek culture by the Jews of the dispersion made their integration among other culture much easier. The Roman period (from 63 BC onward) allowed Jews to spread westward thanks to the religious freedom provided by the Roman Empire. In the eve of the first century, many Jews had settled in Rome and other Roman provinces and were also found in sizable numbers as far as the Parthian empire in the East.4 Strabo quoted by Josephus remarks:
These Jews are already gotten into all cities; and it is hard to find a place in the habitable earth that has not admitted this tribe of men, and is not possessed by them.5

By the first century, around two-thirds of Jews were living outside Palestine with large settlements in ancient Babylonia, Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor, Phoenicia, Cyrene, Greece, and Rome; by conservative estimates, Jews made up about 7 percent of the total population of the Roman Empire.6
Moreover, Judaism had a special status in the Roman Empire. Jews were privileged because of the antiquity of their faith and lineage. They had been allies of Rome during the Maccabean era, and had helped Roman leaders such as Julius Caesar in their political and military endeavors. In order to reward them, Rome granted to the Jews the free exercise of their religion and exempted them from the mandatory emperor worship and sacrifices to the gods of the Rome. Jews were also permitted to judge their own affairs using Jewish laws. Romans local authorities went even as far as granting special dispensation with respect to Jewish scruples concerning military service and the Sabbath. A Roman general under Julius Caesar, Publius Cornelius Dolabella, quoted by Josephus decreed:
I therefore grant them (the Jews) a freedom from going into the army, as the former governors have done, and permit them to use the customs of their forefathers, in assembling together for sacred and religious purposes, as their law requires, and for collecting oblations necessary for sacrifices; and my will is, that you write this to the various cities under your jurisdiction. And these were the concessions that Dolabella made to our nation, when Hyrcanus sent an embassy to him; but Lucius the consul 's decree ran thus:--``I have at my tribunal set these Jews, who are citizens of Rome, and follow the Jewish religious rites, and yet live at Ephesus, free from going into the army, on account of their religion. This was done before the twelfth of the calends of October, when Lucius Lentulus and Gaius Marcellus were consuls. 7

Because of such exemptions and relationships with Roman authorities, the political and economic situation of most Jews of the Diaspora remained unaffected by the unrest in their native land throughout most of the first century.8 The presence of Jews throughout the world would prove to be instrumental to the geographical spread of Christianity. the Jewish roots of Christianity From the beginning, the Christian faith was deeply rooted in Jewish traditions, practices, and beliefs. Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew) was born of Jewish parents9 on the eve of the era bearing His name and circumcised on the 8th day according to Jewish laws and customs. At the onset of His adult ministry, Jesus was known to frequent the synagogue Sabbath after Sabbath. Jesus earthly ministry was primarily directed towards His fellow Jews, the house of Israel. As such, the ministry and life of Christ can only be properly understood by considering its Jewish and Palestinian background. The early followers of Jesus were Jews and He instructed them in a fashion very reminiscent of first century itinerant Jewish rabbis. It is not surprising to find the primitive church after Pentecost (around AD 30) composed almost exclusively of Jews from Palestine and from the Jewish Diaspora.10
Even after Pentecost, the primitive church kept many Jewish practices; they kept frequenting the Temple, they attended synagogues, and made copious use of the Old Testament. Wilson observes that the early followers of Christ did not evolve outside Judaism but where rather considered a mere sect within Judaism. The book of Acts, which contains one of the earliest testimonies related to the early church, records that early followers of Christ were called “the sect of the Nazarenes” (Acts 25:5).11 This new Jewish sect enjoyed favor from the Jewish population in general (especially in Jerusalem) but met variable opposition from Jewish leaders.
The Jewish makeup of the primitive church was never an issue, rather, the debate raging in the early decades of the church was related to whether or not non-Jews could be included in the Church and how much of the Jewish traditions and practices they needed to adopt. Such debates were at the center of the Jerusalem council (Acts 15). As the church started to expand in Palestine and among the Jews of the Diaspora, Hellenistic Jews became a sizable component of the Church especially under the leadership of Saul later known as Paul. The early Church found in Hellenistic Judaism and its network of synagogues and settlements across the Roman Empire, the ideal ready-made set-up through which the new faith would reach the extremities of the Roman Empire.12
Hellenistic Judaism and Early Church By the time of Christ and the apostles, the Jewish synagogues of the Diaspora had already made the crucial adjustment of the Jewish faith to its Hellenistic environment. The language barrier had been crossed with the translation of the Hebrew bible (the Old Testament) in Greek, the lingua franca of the time. The translation of biblical texts in Greek was accompanied by a conceptual translation of Jewish religious thought into the Greek outlook of reality. Hellenistic Jews had begun to set forth an apology of their faith in the territories where they had settled. They sought to propagate its intrinsic worth and clarify its central theological tenets with well articulate theological propositions.13 Unsurprisingly, the synagogues of the Diaspora provided a natural “base of operation” for Christian missionaries in the early stages of the Church. The Hellenistic synagogue offered several points of contact with the emerging faith. Many Jews had moved away from a strict devotion to the particulars of Palestinian Judaism but were still dedicated to its core tenets.
Furthermore, “God-fearing” gentiles who were already drawn to aspects of Judaism found in Christianity all of the same advantages they looked for in Jewish religion without many of its drawbacks. Christianity offered “monotheism, high ethical standards, a close knit social community, the authority of an ancient sacred Scripture, a rational worship.”14 In the other hand, the Christian faith did not include the obstacles that kept many would-be proselytes from Judaism: “the association with a single nationality, the rite of circumcision, restrictions that seemed meaningless (Sabbath, food laws).”15 Another way in which the primitive church beneficiated from its association with Hellenistic synagogues was that local authorities often considered Christian congregations to be part of the synagogue and consequently left them alone because of the privileged status that Jews enjoyed in the Roman empire. Many of the practices of the early church came from their closeness to the synagogue. Case in point, the early church worship practices were often modeled after that which was found in synagogues, including Scripture reading and exegesis, prayers and the partaking of food. The Scriptures used by Christians where at first, the very Jewish Scriptures (the Hebrew Bible or what is know in the Christian Bible as the Old Testament). It is only thereafter that they did include specifically Christian sacred writings beginning with the letters of Paul and the gospel of Luke which were specifically identified as holy writ already in the New Testament and thus before AD 70.16 Dissimilarities also existed between Christian congregations and synagogues. The terminology and function of its officers were different; women in the early church had a more prominent role and a greater involvement in the affairs of the church.17
However, as the book of Acts and the Pauline epistles testify, not everything was always trouble-free for Christians in their interactions with Hellenistic synagogues; there was a diversity of reactions to the new faith by Jews of the Diaspora ranging from joyous acceptance to even more intense opposition than what the Church had faced in Jerusalem.
Jewish Christian relations after the fall of Jerusalem
Before the Jewish war of AD 66-70 and the destruction of the temple, Christianity was intimately, if uneasily, associated with Judaism and was still viewed by many as a sectarian faction within it. The first Jewish rebellion against Rome set in motion a chain of events that will dramatically affect Jewish Christian relationships and end up driving a permanent wedge between the sister faiths.18
The devastation of much of the city of Jerusalem in the conflicts of AD 66–70 and the ensuing humiliation of the Jewish people has been regarded as the catastrophe that brought about (or at least set in motion) the rift between Christians and Jews. Unquestionably, the cost of the war on Judaism was not without consequences, as scores of Jews were dead or taken prisoner. The land was in economic disarray: many properties had been seized and there was an increased in taxes levied. The temple was destroyed and the Sanhedrin was dissolved.
The destruction of the temple took away a key meeting point between the rising Christian faith and Judaism. Additionally, it became more and more apparent that the new “sect” had fundamental theological tenets and practices that ran counter to what was typically accepted within Judaism despite it diversity. Additionally, the aggressive pursuit of gentiles by the early church, and the “relaxed” requirements that were imposed on them, were out of step with the concept of proselytism in Judaism, especially when it came to the removal of the yoke of the Torah.19 Judah the Prince emphatically declared
Just as Israel did not enter the covenant except by means of three things –circumcision, immersion, and the acceptance of a sacrifice- so it is the same with proselytes.20

Our Rabbis taught: If at the present time a man desires to become a proselyte, he is to be addressed as follows: 'What reason have you for desiring to become a proselyte; do you not know that Israel at the present time are persecuted and oppressed, despised, harassed and overcome by afflictions '? If he replies, 'I know and yet am unworthy he is accepted forthwith, and is given instruction in some of the minor and some of the major commandments. He is informed of the sin [of the neglect of the commandments of] Gleanings, the Forgotten Sheaf, the Corner and the Poor Man 's Tithe. He is also told of the punishment for the transgression of the commandments. Furthermore, he is addressed thus: 'Be it known to you that before you came to this condition, if you had eaten suet you would not have been punishable with kareth, if you had profaned the Sabbath you would not have been punishable with stoning; but now were you to eat suet you would be punished with kareth; were you to profane the Sabbath you would be punished with stoning '. And as he is informed of the punishment for the transgression of the commandments, so is he informed of the reward granted for their fulfillment…. If he accepted, he is circumcised forthwith. Should any shreds which render the circumcision invalid remain, he is to be circumcised a second time. As soon as he is healed arrangements are made for his immediate ablution, when two learned men must stand by his side and acquaint him with some of the minor commandments and with some of the major ones. When he comes up after his ablution he is deemed to be an Israelite in all respects…The Master said, 'If a man desires to become a proselyte … he is to be addressed as follows: "What reason have you for desiring to become a proselyte …" and he is made acquainted with some of the minor, and with some of the major commandments '. What is the reason? — In order that if he desire to withdraw let him do so, for Rabbi Helbo said: Proselytes are as hard for Israel [to endure] as a sore, because it is written in Scripture. And the proselyte shall join himself with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.21

We do not accept a convert who has accepted upon himself all the laws of the Torah except one. Rabbi Judah says: Even a minor law of the subtleties of the scribes (Rabbinic ordinances).22

The Torah became significant in Jewish-Christian relationship after AD 70. After the destruction of Jerusalem, the Pharisees that were not actively involved in the rebellion against Rome were given the opportunity by the Romans to build a rabbinical school at Yavneh (Jamnia), a city in Judea on the Mediterranean coast. Under the leadership of Yohanan Ben Zakkai and later Gamaliel II, the main focus of Judaism became the Torah and the regulation of the transmission of the traditions attached to its interpretation. The development and codification of the Halakah (rules by which Israel should live) was crystallized in the Mishnah starting around AD 200. In turn, the Mishnah would be the foundation of the Talmud, which over the centuries came in two flavors: the Palestinian and Babylonian versions.23
From a Christian perspective, the revolt of AD 66-70 purged or at least significantly reduced the foundation of conservative Jewish Christianity in Jerusalem. According to Eusebius,
The members of the Jerusalem Church, by means of an oracle given by revelation to acceptable persons there, were ordered to leave the city before the war began and settle in a town of Perea called Pella.24

With Jerusalem no more the center of the primitive church, the early church was driven further apart from Palestinian Judaism by not having the temple or the Jerusalem leadership to keep it tied to Judaism that itself was undergoing crucial mutations. The events of AD 66-70 coupled with the mission to the gentiles set in motion the demise of Jewish Christianity and the rise to prominence of Hellenistic Christianity. However, the early church did not immediately reject its Jewish heritage but kept the Jewish Scriptures (the Old Testament) and modeled many aspects of its worship service and ecclesiology after the synagogue. Many Christians preserved entire sets of non-rabbinical Jewish writings from the first century and pre-Christian Judaism.25 Other Jewish material were appropriated by Christians and incorporated in their own works.26
After the fall of Jerusalem, there were still signs of ongoing “exchanges” between Jews and Christians. With the Jewish Academy at Yavneh rising into prominence, rabbis found necessary to clarify the status of Christian writings in relation to the Torah and the accepted cannon. A certain number of preserved rabbinical rulings show Jewish opposition to Christian Scriptures. “Orthodox Judaism” set forth measures to destroy any claim that Christianity stood in the traditional of Israel’s ancestral faith. Rabbis insisted that the very copies of the Old Testament made by Jewish Christians (sifre minim) were not holy and needed to be destroyed.27 In the Babylonian Talmud Gittin 45b, rabbi Nahman affirms that Jews, have a tradition that a Torah scroll written by a min (literally Heretic that is, a Jewish Christian) must be burnt, one written by an idolater must be stored away. One that is found with a min must be stored away, and one that is found with an idolater, some say it must be stored others say it may be read.28

At the beginning of the second century, When Christian Scriptures started to circulate widely, the sanctity of those Christian sacred texts, which had quotations of Jewish Scriptures became a subject of concern for Judaism. Rabbis were quick to deny that the quotations of Jewish Scriptures in Christian canonical writings had any sanctity or halakhic (rules of life for Jews) status. Tosefta29 Shabbat 13:5 clarifies the status of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) quotations in the New Testament:
We do not save from a fire (on the Sabbath) the Gospels and the books of the minim (Jewish Christians). Rather they are burned in their place and their Tetragrammata… Said Rabbi Tarfon: May I bury my sons! If (these books) would come into my hand, I would burn them along with their Tetragrammata. For even if a pursuer were running after me, I would enter a house of idolatry rather than enter their (the Jewish Christian’) houses. For the idolaters do not know Him and deny Him, but these (Jewish Christians) know Him and deny Him.”30

Clearly, in the mind of rabbis during the period leading to the Bar Kokhba war, Jewish Christians were despised even more than idolaters were. Schiffman argues that “while it was understandable that a pagan might embrace the new faith (that is Christianity), it was a great source of frustration that Jews, raised in the traditions of Judaism, would do so as well.”31
Christianity could not be considered a mere sect of Judaism anymore, since its major theological tenets seemed to conflict directly with the traditional understanding of God, the Messiah, and eschatological hope in Judaism. By insisting on the messianic character of Christ and more importantly His divinity, Christianity had step out of the accepted boundaries of Judaism, which despite its diversity could not accept the new faith.
Tosefta Hullin 2:20-21 sets forth a law distancing Jews from the minim (Jewish Christians):
If meat is found in the hands of a non-Jew, it is permitted to derive benefit from it (if it is found) in the hands of a min (Jewish Christian), it is forbidden to derive benefit from it. That which comes forth from the house of a min, indeed it is the meat of sacrifices to the dead (idolatrous worship) for they said: the slaughtering of the min is idolatry; their bread is the bread of a Samaritan; their wine is the wine of (idolatrous) libations; their fruits are untithed; their books are the books of diviners, and their children are mamzerin (fruit of a forbidden marriage or union). We do not sell to them, nor do we buy from them. We do not take from hem nor do we give to them, and we do not teach their sons a craft. We are not healing by them, neither healing of property nor healing of life.32

Nevertheless, some scholars believe that the effect of the war and fall of Jerusalem was less upsetting than it seemed at first sight. “These events may have strained Jewish-Christian relations and caused some Christians to distance themselves from Judaism, but they do not appear to have caused an immediate or final schism.”33
The Last straw: the Bar Kokhba Revolt
The Jewish armed struggle against Roman occupation in Palestine reached its peak and then came to an end with the rebellion of Bar Kokhba (AD 132–35). The Bar Kokhba revolt led to the rise of a momentary autonomous state distinguished by the establishment of local authorities, and coins bearing the emblem of Bar Kokhba. The consensus on the causes of the War centers on the decision by the Roman Emperor Hadrian to transform Jerusalem into a pagan city that would have been named Aelia Capitolina and to outlaw circumcision in a bid to Hellenize and integrate Palestine into the empire. “In Talmudic sources, Bar Kokhba was given the titles nāśı̂˒ (‘ruler’ or ‘prince’) and ‘Messiah’, and the years of his reign were described as ‘kingship’. In his personal letters found in caves above the Dead Sea, he assumed the title nĕśı̂˒ yiśra˒ēl (prince of Israel), and on coins he appears as ‘šim˓ôn nĕśı̂˒ yiśrā˒ēl.’ (Simon prince of Israel).34
Rabbi Akiba said concerning Bar Kokhba (son of a star), “This is the King Messiah”35 and thus declared him Messiah on the basis of the star of Jacob in Numbers 24:17. However, other rabbis rejected this identification especially after the failure of the revolt and called him Bar Kosiba (son of a lie).36 Under the leadership of Simeon Bar Kokhba a large number of Jews took part in the uprising, employing guerrilla tactics reminiscent of the Maccabees rebellion, Rome had to muster sizable reinforcements to quell the insurrection.
The Roman historian Dio Cassius reports
Hadrian sent against them his best generals. First of these was Julius Severus, who was dispatched from Britain, where he was governor, against the Jews. Severus did not venture to attack his opponents in the open at any one point, in view of their numbers and their desperation, but by intercepting small groups, thanks to the number of his soldiers and under-officers, and by depriving them of food and shutting them up, he was able, rather slowly, to be sure, but with comparatively little danger, to crush, exhaust and exterminate them. Very few in fact survived. Fifty of their most important outposts and 985 of their most famous villages were razed to the ground, 580 men were slain in the various raids and battles and the number of those that perished by famine, disease and fire was past finding out. 37

Eusebius recounts the unfolding of the Bar Kokhba revolt
As the rebellion of the Jews at this time grew much more serious, Rufus, governor of Judea, after an auxiliary force had been sent him by the emperor, using their madness as a pretext, proceeded against them without mercy, and destroyed indiscriminately thousands of men and women and children, and in accordance with the laws of war reduced their country to a state of complete subjection. The leader of the Jews at this time was a man by the name of Bar Kokhba (which signifies a star), who possessed the character of a robber and a murderer, but nevertheless, relying upon his name, boasted to them, as if they were slaves, that he possessed wonderful powers; and he pretended that he was a star that had come down to them out of heaven to bring them light in the midst of their misfortunes. The war raged most fiercely in the eighteenth year of Hadrian, at the city of Bithara, which was a very secure fortress, situated not far from Jerusalem. When the siege had lasted a long time, and the rebels had been driven to the last extremity by hunger and thirst, and the instigator of the rebellion had suffered his just punishment, the whole nation was prohibited from this time on by a decree, and by the commands of Adrian, from ever going up to the country about Jerusalem. For the emperor gave orders that they should not even see from a distance the land of their fathers.38

The war had disastrous consequences on the already fragile relationship between Jews and Christians. Jerome wrote “Bar Kokhba, (the) leader of the Jewish faction put Christians to death with various tortures.”39 It is not surprising that Bar Kokhba decided to persecute Christians. From Dio Cassius account, it is obvious that the struggle against Rome was desperate and that Bar Kokhba needed to muster every able body he could find to fight against Rome. Christians, for various raisons, refused to take part in the uprising and thus were considered traitors. Additionally, it did not help that their allegiance to Jesus Christ (which means Jesus the Messiah) was a direct challenge to Bar Kokhba’s messianic status. Justin Martyr writing no more than ten or twenty years after the events reported that
“in the Jewish war…, Bar Kokhba, the leader of the revolt of the Jews, gave orders that Christians alone should be led to cruel punishments, unless they would deny Jesus Christ and utter blasphemy.”40

The Bar Kokhba war marked a low point in Jewish-Christian relations. The rift between Jews and Christians was now centered on messianic claims and the issue of who represented the True Israel. Larry Helyer observes that “in effect a final divorce between these two faiths became a fait accompli.”41 the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt and Jewish-Christian relations
From the Bar Kokhba uprising on, the Jewish and Christian quarrels not only increased but also took on a new shape. “The polemics were no longer those of squabbling siblings but those of largely ethnically distinct peoples42 who viewed one another as foreign.”43 Jews saw the Christian faith as one replete with idol worship and heretical doctrine; followers of Christ in turn, viewed Judaism in terms of apostasy and stubbornness.
After AD 135, the liturgy of the synagogues had been altered to dissuade Christian Jews from participating in the worship service. It was probably at the same time that the twelfth benediction of the ancient Jewish prayer, called the Amidah (or Shemoneh Esreh), was revised and enlarged:
R. Levi said: The benediction relating to the Minim was instituted in Jabneh… Can anyone among you frame a benediction relating to the heretics? Samuel the Lesser arose and composed it.44

Samuel the Lesser’s work has been linked to the revision of the twelfth benediction, which reads:
“For apostates let there be no hope, and the kingdom of arrogance quickly uproot. In a moment let the minim (Jewish Christians) and the Nozerim (literally “Nazarenes” with emphasis on the Gentile Christians) be destroyed; let them be blotted from the Book of Life, and with the righteous not be inscribed. Blessed are you, O Lord, who loves judgment!45.

It was almost certainly to this “benediction”, also known as the Birkat ha-Minim, literally “Blessing of the heretics,”46 that Justin referred to when he said to Trypho, “You curse in your synagogues all those who are called from him Christians.”47.
As shown previously, Jewish polemic against Christians before and during the Bar Kokhba incident could be callous and hideous; in the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt, Christian polemic against Jews took the same low road. However, historical records of Jewish polemic against Christians after Bar Kokhba were muffled and even deleted from historical records when Christianity gained the upper hand. Some of these Jewish diatribes are preserved in “dialogues” written by Christians. The most famous of those is Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. While these dialogues did not actually take place, and more often than not portray the Christian apologist as rebutting, even rendering speechless, their Jewish adversaries, “the nature of the objections raised by the Jews in all probability accurately reflects the arguments and polemic that Jews directed against Christians.”48
Trypho, as presented in Justin’s dialogue, found it hard to believe that Jesus could have actually fulfilled the prophecies contained in the Jewish Bible. Jesus could not be the promised Messiah, in view of the fact that he had been vanquished and executed by the Romans in the most disgraceful way. Trypho remarked,
“Be assured that all our nation waits for the Messiah; and we admit that all the Scriptures which you have quoted refer to Him... but whether the Messiah should be so shamefully crucified, this we are in doubt about. For whosoever is crucified is said in the law to be accursed, so that I am exceedingly incredulous on this point. It is quite clear, indeed, that the Scriptures announce that Christ had to suffer; but we wish to learn if you can prove it to us whether it was by the suffering cursed … prove to us whether He must be crucified and die so disgracefully and so dishonorably by the death cursed in the law For we cannot bring ourselves even to think of this.”49

the final parting of the ways
Late in the second century and into the third century, the polemic became much acerb, even vile. Well-mannered exchanges, such as those related in Justin’s Dialogue, were replaced by invectives and insults. The polemic as recorded in the Talmud and the Midrashim recounts some of this spiteful diatribe. Speaking of Jesus’ birth the Babylonian Talmud records: She who was the descendant of princes and governors (a reference to Mary) played the harlot with carpenters (a reference to Joseph).50.

Later Jesus is accused of idolatry in an account with a striking of anachronism that places Him as a contemporary of King Jannai who died 76 years before Christ:
“When king Jannai slew our rabbis, R. Joshua and Jesus fled to Alexandria of Egypt. On the resumption of peace . . . he arose, went, and found himself in a certain inn, where great honor was shown him. ‘How beautiful is this innkeeper!’ Thereupon Jesus observed, ‘Rabbi, her eyes are narrow.’ ‘Wretch,’ he rebuked him, ‘do you engage yourself thus?’ He sounded four hundred trumpets and excommunicated him. He [Jesus] came before him many times pleading, ‘Receive me!’ But he would pay no heed to him. One day he [R. Joshua] was reciting the Shema, when Jesus came before him. He intended to receive him and made a sign to him. He [Jesus], thinking that it was to repel him, went, put up a brick, and worshipped it. ‘Repent,’ said he [R. Joshua] to him. He replied, ‘I have thus learned from you: “He who sins and causes others to sin is not afforded the means of repentance.” ’ ”51

The Babylonian Talmud continues by mentioning that Jesus had five disciples whose names bring to mind an assortment of evils and misfortunes. Often times, Jesus was said to having performed magical acts and having corrupted Israel52. Indeed, Jesus was said to have been raised through incantation53 and was compared to Balaam, a reviled false prophet.
Onkelos son of Kolonikos was the son of Titus 's sister. He had a mind to convert himself to Judaism. He went and raised Titus from the dead by magical arts, and asked him; 'Who is most in repute in the [other] world? He replied: Israel… He then went and raised Balaam by incantations. He asked him: Who is in repute in the other world? He replied: Israel. What then, he said, about joining them? He replied: You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever. He then asked: What is your punishment? He replied: With boiling hot semen. He then went and raised Jesus by incantations. He asked them: Who is in repute in the other world? They replied: Israel. What about joining them? They replied: Seek their welfare, seek not their harm. Whoever touches them touches the apple of his eye. He said: What is your punishment? They replied: With boiling hot excrement, since a Master has said: Whoever mocks at the words of the Sages is punished with boiling hot excrement. Observe the difference between the sinners of Israel and the prophets of the other nations who worship idols.54

Judaism and Christianity were driven further apart by Christian polemic in response to the Jewish attacks noted above, matching them in intensity and virulence.
Yet, even before the events surrounding the Bar Kokhba revolt, some Christian writers already display a certain anti-Judaism stance. Ignatius of Antioch (early second century) declared, “If we continue to live according to Judaism, we are admitting that we have not received grace”. More stridently, Ignatius later says that “it is monstrous to talk of Jesus Christ and to practice Judaism.”55 According to Barnabas 13–14 God’s covenant with Israel came to an end after the nation devoted itself to idol worship at Mount Sinai; God’s covenant was said to be from then on with Christians alone. Melito Bishop of Sardis who died in AD 180 declared:
“And you killed the Lord at the great feast . . . O lawless Israel, what is this unprecedented crime that you committed, thrusting your Lord among unprecedented sufferings, your Sovereign, who formed you, who made you, who honored you, who called you ‘Israel’? . . . And who has been murdered? Who is the murderer? I am ashamed to say and I am obliged to tell. . . . The Sovereign has been insulted; the God has been murdered; the King of Israel has been put to death by an Israelite right hand!”56

The writer of the Epistle to Diognetus (around AD 200) derides circumcision and the Jewish dietary regulations:57
But as to their scrupulosity concerning meats, and their superstition as respects the Sabbaths, and their boasting about circumcision, and their fancies about fasting and the new moons, which are utterly ridiculous and unworthy of notice, I do not think that you require to learn anything from me. For, to accept some of those things, which have been formed by God for the use of men as properly formed, and to reject others as useless and redundant, how can this be lawful? And to speak falsely of God, as if He forbade us to do what is good on the Sabbath-days, how is not this impious? And to glory in the circumcision of the flesh as a proof of election, and as if, on account of it, they were specially beloved by God, how is it not a subject of ridicule? And as to their observing months and days, as if waiting upon the stars and the moon, and their distributing58

Hostility to Jewish customs played a part in the Christian disapproval of the Jewish Christians known as Nazoreans.59
Later on, Christian polemic in the third to fifth centuries became even conspicuously more acrimonious. John Chrysostom, a doctor of the Church in the end of the fourth century said,
“The synagogue is a temple of idolatry. . . . A synagogue is less honorable than any inn. For it is not simply a gathering place for thieves and hucksters, but also of demons. Indeed, not only the synagogue, but the soul of the Jews are also the dwelling places of demons.”60 Christians charged adherent of Judaism of apostasy and revolt against God; as far as the putting Jesus to death, Christian accused the Jews of deicide. Many patristic writers believed that since the Jews had rejected Christ and persisted in their unbelief in the Gospel, God had forsaken the Jews. Cyprian who died a martyr at Carthage September 14, 258 inquired,
Did not the Jews perish on this account, since they preferred to envy rather than to believe in Christ? Disparaging the great things that he did, they were deceived by a blinding jealousy and they were unable to open the eyes of their hearts so as to recognize his divine works.61

Some Church fathers believed that the downfall of Israel was irreversible and hopeless (Chrysostom Homilies; Eusebius; Augustine City of God).62
These factors played a fundamental part in the disappearance of Jewish Christianity and the irreversible break up between the two sister-religions. These facts only broadened the gap between Christianity (now just about completely non-Jewish) and the Jews as a people (now just about without any Christians among its ranks).
Conclusion
When the Christianity attained its determinative stage (fourth and fifth centuries) there was almost no Jewish contribution. At approximately this same point in time, the rabbinic school, which was especially unsympathetic to the Christian Messiah and Christianity, triumphed over the last remnant of dissenting parties in their quest to delineate Judaism. The formation of the New Testament canon and the clarification of numerous central dogmas of the faith, such as the Trinity and the deity of Jesus, were made without Jewish participation. The ultimate character of Christianity consequently was progressively more non-Jewish, therefore rendering Christianity less appealing to Jews and resulting in a further enlargement of the disparity between Jews and Christians.63
Ultimately, from a Jewish point of view, to become Christian was to dispose of one’s Jewish identity. In the Jewish mind, the Christian faith was not merely erroneous, it was worse than paganism and the most treacherous apostasy. In over a century and a half since the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Judaism and Christianity had evolved from a fraternal discussion to an utterly hostile relationship. “To become one was to cease being the other.”64 This attitude resulted in Jewish Christianity sandwiched between the two faiths and inexorably being rejected and abhorred by both. The ultimate downfall of Jewish Christianity in the fifth century was the logical conclusion of the parting of the ways between the two faiths, leading to Jewish-Christian relationships (or lack thereof) that were far-flung from the animated interactions and in-house quarrels of the first century. Bibliography

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Bibliography: Christian Origins, Rev. Ed. London: Harper Collins, 1995. Dunn, James D.G. The Parting of the Ways. Philadelphia, Trinity Press International, 1991. Epstein, Isidore Ed. Soncino Babylonian Talmud. London: The Soncino press, 1948 Translated by G. A. Williamson. London: Penguin Books, 1989. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003. Electronic Ed. New York: Doubleday, 1996. Downers Groves: Intervarsity Press, 1999. Kregel Publication, 1999. Scott, Julius. “A Brief History of the Intertestamental Period.” Journal for the Evangelical Theological Society 38, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 209-231.