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After the destruction of
Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Great Sanhedrin was moved to Yavne[109] (Javne or Jabneh),
where it became the center of Pharisaic Judaism, and was presided over by
Johanan ben Zakkai. One of their immediate goals seems to have been the
“cleansing” of Phariseeism from outside influences, particularly Greek and
Roman.
Between 70 and 90 CE there
was a group of leading Rabbis in Yavne which has become known as the “Council
of Yavne.” The purpose of the Council was to reorganize Judaism because the
Temple was gone and the sacrifices were abolished. Formalized synagogue
worship was established as a replacement for the Temple (the Torah scroll now
wears the crown and breastplate of the Kohen Gadol[110]), the Greek version
of the Tanakh[111] called the Septuagint
was condemned, and the Masoretic Hebrew text was adopted as the “official”
version of the Tanakh.
Before that time there were
eighteen benedictions or blessings, known as the amidah,[112] that were recited as
part of the daily service of worship. Sometime around 80 CE the Council, at
the urging of Rabban Gamli’el II, or Gamli’el of Yavne to distinguish him
from his grandfather (Rabbi Sha’ul’s mentor), added a nineteenth blessing
(actually inserted at the twelfth position in the liturgy) called the
Birkat ha Minim (Blessing of the Heretics), which was actually a curse
rather than a blessing.
One version of this
“benediction” reads:
Blessed are You, O Lord our G-d, King of Justice. For the
slanderers (minim, or heretics) let there be no hope, and let all
wickedness perish as in a moment; let all your enemies be speedily cut off
[killed], uproot and crush the dominion of arrogance, and cast down and
humble speedily in our days. Blessed are you, O Lord, who breaks the enemies
and humbles the arrogant.
Originally directed towards
the Sadducees and other “heretics,” in the Genizah version the word
minim was replaced with the word Nozerim (Nazarenes), a direct
reference both to Yeshua and to the Messianic Jews who followed Him.
A particularly distressing
ruling concerning the amidah was that the entire body of the amidah
could be recited silently or whispered, except for the Birkat ha Minim,
which was required to be recited out loud, and anyone who refused was
“excommunicated” or put out of the synagogue.
Although the Birkat ha
Minim marked the beginning of the separation of Messianic
Believers from the synagogue, the real split came during the Bar Kochba[113] rebellion against
Rome (132-135 CE). After the success of the first few years of the uprising,
Rabbi Akiva, the leading rabbi at Yavne at the time, declared that the leader
of the revolution was the Messiah and gave him the name Bar Kochba (“Son of
the Star”) based on the prophecy of Bil`am [Balaam] in the Torah:
There shall come forth a star out of
Ya`akov, a scepter shall rise out of Yisra'el, shall strike through the
corners of Mo’av[114], break down all the
sons of tumult … (Numbers 22:17).
Now, at Rabbi Akiva’s
insistence, the Birkat ha Minim was applied against everyone who
failed to acknowledge Bar Kochba as the Messiah. Obviously those who knew
that Yeshua was the Messiah could not possibly call Bar Kochba the Messiah,
and it was most likely at this point (more than 100 years after the
Resurrection of Yeshua) that the Messianic Believers first began to form
their own synagogues.
Within just a very few years
(ca. 135 CE), Bar Kochba was tricked into believing that Rabbi Elazar was
involved in treason and Bar Kochba executed him, which lost him the support
of Rabbi Akiva and the rest of the Rabbis. His “messiahship” was “revoked”
and the Rabbis reverted his name to Ben Kosiba, which was either his real
name or, appropriately and literally, the “Son of the Lie.”[115]
Unfortunately, the
split between the Messianic and non-Messianic Jews was irreparable. And so it
was that Messianic Judaism and Rabbinical Judaism parted company. But this
division did not come until a full century after Yeshua’s resurrection,
approximately 40 years after the last of the Messianic
Midrashim[116] had been composed
(the Book of the Revelation, ca. 96 CE), and at least 35 years after the
death of the last surviving Shliach.[117]
And so we can clearly see
that nothing in the minds of either Yeshua or the Shliachim ever
suggested that there be any form of Messianic Community apart from the
synagogue. In fact, the writer of the Epistle to the Messianic Jews
specifically tells us to not forsake the synagogue:
Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good
works, not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of
some is, but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as you see the Day
approaching. (Hebrews 10:25, NAS)
The Greek word here
translated as “assembling together” is
episounagoge (episunagoge),
which is a combination of the two Greek words
epi (epi),
upon or at, and sunagoge (sunagoge), synagogue, or literally “at the
synagogue.” So this phrase very well could be interpreted as “not
forsaking our own synagogue.”
It was not until the Council
of Nicea was convened by the Roman Emperor Constantine (325 CE) that the
“church” as we know it today came into existence, and the Messianic Jews were
given the option to either renounce all things Jewish and become Gentiles or
be put to death.[118]
Desiring to consolidate both
the religious and secular aspects of the Empire under his authority (ca. 311
CE), Constantine, who was by virtue of his office as Emperor also the
pontifex maximus, or high priest of the form of the Babylonian Mystery
Religion that was practiced in the Empire, merged Messianic Judaism and the
Babylonian religion into a single, empire-wide religion that he called
“Christianity” or “the church.” He and his successor Emperor/Popes simply
redefined the terms and practices of the Babylonian religion with “Bible
words” and appointed their pagan priests as “bishops” of the new official
state religion.[119] They had all the
statues of the Roman gods and goddesses renamed with the names of influential
people in the B’rit Hadasha, particularly the Shliachim, and replaced the
worship of these statues with “the veneration of saints” (which is not
significantly different in any way!)[120],[121]
Then in 325 Constantine
called a council of 318 of these “bishops,” systematically excluding all
bishops of Jewish ancestry, and for all practical purposes outlawed all
things Jewish, and thereby also outlawing virtually all things biblical that
remained in the hybrid Roman state religion.[122]
So we can clearly see that
from 33 CE to 325 CE, a period of almost 300 years from the Resurrection, the
Body of Messiah was in all respects an integral part of worldwide Judaism,
and not at all anything remotely resembling a “new religion,” and that the
only real “new religion” was in fact the Roman state religion which,
by totally rejecting all things Jewish, rejected everything that Yeshua and
the Shliachim stood for and taught.
It should also be
noted that the Council of Nicea and the “new religion” that was spawned there
was the true source of the systematic 1,678-years (thus far) persecution of
Jews by “Christians” which has culminated in the “Final Solution” of Hitler’s
Third Reich and of George W. Bush’s “Roadmap for Peace,” which is a
non-so-subtle plan carefully designed to complete the task of the failed
“Final Solution” and rid the world of the “Jewish Menace” once and for all.
But this has come to pass in fulfillment of Yeshua’s prophecy that just
before the appearance of the Anti-Messiah, Israel must become “hated of all
nations” (Matthew 24:9). Now that America, Israel’s last ally, has turned
against her, she finally stands alone against the entire world, waiting for
Messiah to return and rescue her from her enemies. Oh, if only all Israel
would cry out together to HaShem, “Barukh haba
b’shem Adonai! Maranata! [Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the LORD!
Our LORD comes! |
