The Early Christians: Christians, Jews or Both?

The Book of Hebrews, the nineteenth book in the New Testament, is an oddity, in that it is taken up with two questions that for modern readers don’t seem to fit in a Christian Bible. Those questions are: 1. What does it mean to be Jewish? 2. Now that I believe in Jesus, can I still practice my Judaism in the same way? That may seem like a strange discussion, the meaning of being Jewish, together with believing in Jesus, but today we sometimes forget that the earliest Christians were still Jews, and the first followers of Jesus did not see themselves as leaving Judaism but instead they were like a Jewish sect that found themselves increasingly in conflict with mainstream Jewish leadership.

It’s worth remembering that the earliest Jesus followers functioned as Jews, continuing to pray and meet at the temple.  In Acts 2:46, for example, they are described as “devoting themselves every day to meeting together in the temple area and to breaking bread in their homes.” In Acts 3:1, Peter and John “were going up in the temple area for the three o’clock hour of prayer.” In Acts 13, 14, 17 and 18, Paul preached in the synagogues in Salamis (Cyprus), Pisidion Antioch, Iconium, Lysta, Thessalonica, Berea, and Corinth.

In Acts 20, Paul “is eager to sail past Ephesus in order not to lose time,” because he is rushing to “be in Jerusalem, if at all possible for Pentecost” (20:16). This means he is hurrying to Jerusalem to observe the Deuteronomy 16:16 law to make the pilgrimage for Pentecost. In Acts 21, Paul undergoes ritual purification at the Temple in Jerusalem as part of his observance of the Pentecost pilgrimage requirement. Once there, he pays a temple offering for himself and for a group of Jewish followers of Jesus who were “completing their vows.” These vows are likely a reference to the completion of the Nazirite vows. The Book of Numbers describes a voluntary group of devout Jews who follow certain rules, like avoiding all grape products and not cutting their hair, for example, to become Nazirites for a period as a purification process. According to Numbers 6, Nazirite vow completion law involves temple offerings. Here Paul pays for those offerings for this group of Jewish followers of Jesus.

In Acts 20 and 21, then, we see the Jewish followers of Jesus continuing to follow Jewish religious observance and observing purity customs according to Jewish law. In Second Temple Judaism, adult Jewish males were expected to go to Jerusalem for the three pilgrimage festivals of Passover (Pesach), Pentecost (Shavuot), and Tabernacles (Sukkot)(Deuteronomy 16:16). Jesus and his Jewish family likely observed the same law. For example, Luke 2:41 says clearly of Jesus that “His parents went to Jerusalem every year at Passover.” Jesus attends Passover (Pesach) in Jerusalem in John 2. In John 7, he makes the pilgrimage for the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) and in John 19, for the Festival of Dedication (Hanukkah).

Yet these early Jewish Christians are also dealing with a new religious reality that forces them to ask questions about their Jewish faith. For example, now that they believe the Messiah has come, did they still need to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem? And when or if they did make the pilgrimage, did they still need to make a Temple sacrifice even if, according to them, their Messiah sacrificed himself as atonement for their sins?

Hebrews 4:14-16 responds in an interesting way to those two very questions presented by Paul’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Pentecost. Hebrews 4:14 states, “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession” (4:14). This verse suggests that Jesus is the highest and holiest priest, and because he has “passed through the heavens,” the sacred space is no longer earthly, it is instead a heavenly sanctuary that is now accessible directly. In Hebrews 4:16, it says, “So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.” This line implies that the process involving approaching the throne has changed. For example, since the ritual of animal sacrifice as atonement is fulfilled and even surpassed in Jesus’ blood, the purification ritual is no longer necessary.

Yet Acts 21 shows Paul undergoing purification, entering the Temple, and associating with vow completion offerings. Understanding the context of the situation helps to shed light on what may be happening. The text states that the Jewish followers of Jesus in Jerusalem warn him that the “thousands of believers from among the Jews” are all “zealous observers of the law” (21:20), but they also have heard that Paul “is teaching all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to abandon Moses” and, among other things, “not to observe their customary practices” (21:21). Paul’s reputation in Jerusalem seems to be as a religious zealot who will lead them away from the faith. That is one reason why in Acts 21:24, these same early Jewish Christians who tell him his reputation is terrible advise Paul,

“Take these men and purify yourself with them and pay their expenses that they may have their head shaved. In this way everyone will know that there is nothing to the reports they have been given about you and that you yourself live in observance of the law.”

This makes the act of Paul’s Temple visit political and public at a time when he needs to demonstrate that he is not anti-Jewish, and he is not making his Jewish followers of Jesus fall away from the faith but instead is making them become more Jewish and more devout.

The attempt fails as public conflict management because in Acts 21:27-28, after completing his seven days of purification, he is recognized in the Temple and again accused of teaching against the people, against the law, and against the Temple. In Acts 22, when Paul is seized by the authorities, he asks whether he can address the Jewish crowds in Hebrew/Aramaic. This public address is received just as badly as his presence in the Temple after his seven-day purification. He goes through arrest, custody, a hearing, imprisonment, a transfer to Caesarea, and an eventual voyage to Rome. His last public address to the Jewish crowd in Jerusalem seems to be a total failure, and this is also his last recorded public Jewish ritual action, dated at approximately 57 CE.

The dating of the Book of Hebrews is debated but mostly said to fall between 60 CE and 95 CE. The strongest arguments favor dating the book before 70 CE since no mention is made of the Temple’s destruction. If Hebrews were written after Rome destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE, some say the author would have mentioned it.  For example, Hebrews 8:4-5 says, “There are priests who offer gifts according to the law,” and in Hebrews 10:1-3, sacrifices are described as ongoing. Acts 21 and 22 is said to be written approximately in 57 CE, and the Book of Hebrews is generally dated between 60 CE and 95 CE. Yet the more likely dating of the Book of Hebrews is between 60 and 70 CE, that is between three and thirteen years after Acts 21 and 22 took place.

Both the Book of Acts and the Book of Hebrews suggest that before the Temple’s destruction in 70 CE, Jewish followers of Jesus wrestled with the question of how to practice their Judaism now that, according to them, the Messiah had died for their sins. The actions described in the Book of Acts indicate that they continued to practice their Jewish faith. They demonstrated their devotion to Judaism through being described by other Jewish Christians in Jerusalem as “zealous observers of the law” (Acts 21:20) and by their wariness to align themselves with Paul, whom they worried was against the law and the Temple (21:21). They also showed their Jewishness through symbolic acts like that of becoming a Nazirite that suggested heightened religious dedication.

*All quotes from Scripture come from The New American Bible.