An important aspect of this dynamic is the political and religious climate within which the New Testament books were written, which differ significantly from the climate within which Jesus wrote. For instance, in the Gospel of John the synagogue is a central organizing factor of Jewish culture. This was not so during Jesus time. John is written after the destruction of the temple, when rabbinical Judaism was beginning to take definite shape. During this time, Christianity and Judaism started to break from one another. Up until this time, Jesus followers had considered themselves Jews, and in many places they met in synagogues. Jews, correspondingly, considered Jesus-followers a strange messianic sect of the Jewish faith. Sometimes this sect was vehemently opposed, and sometimes it was tolerated. But it was looked at as a Jewish movement.
When the temple was destroyed in AD 70, most Jesus followers left Jerusalem, and did not fight with the Jews against the Romans during the Jewish uprising. After the new diaspora began, many Jews started to throw Christians out of their community, and disavowed them as "non-Jews". This presented a huge problem for early Christians. You see, everyone in the Roman Empire was legally required to worship the emperor. Everyone, that is, except the Jews. When the Jews entered the Empire, they had Rome's leaders agree to a law that would exempt them from the Imperial Cult. While Rome did not always hold to this ancient law, it generally did. But once Christians were thrown out of the synagogues, they lost this Jewish exemption. They then faced a terrible choice: worship Caesar (which they could not do any more than the Jews could, in good conscience), or face torture and/or death. This made persecutions, which were highly localized early on, much easier.
It was in this context that John is written, and it is likely the reason why John talks in several places about being 'thrown out of the synagogues'. The Greek term used for excommunication was not utilized in this Judeo-Centric way until after 90 AD. This is one of the ways we date the Gospel of John. The thing is, that John has a strong anti-Judaistic tendency. It paints Jews as stupid, blinded by satan, hating of Christians and their leader, and ultimately superseded by the Christian faith. The Gospel of John likely projects some late first-century concerns and conflicts onto the time of Jesus. In other words, Jesus' anti-Judaism in John is an anachronistic projection resulting from hurt feelings over the conflict between Jews and Christians at the time the Book was written.
It is interesting to note that around the same time that the Gospel of John was written, another man named John, who was suffering under the Roman persecutions and knew people directly affected by synagogue excommunications, responded in a different way. That man was John the Revelator. The Gospel of John is undoubtedly written by someone for whom Greek was a first language, or someone who had become a scholar of the language. Revelation was written by someone whose first language was aramaic or hebrew, and whose Greek is choppy and harder to understand. This John is far more focused in his attacks. He attacks directly those Jews who are kicking Christians out of synagogues (Revelation 3:9). However, when it comes to Judaism in general, he seems to think that Jews and Christians are part of the same whole cloth. Some of the details are going to be touched upon in some upcoming posts, taken directly from the Bible study I've written on the book of revelation. But simply put, John sees the Jewish nation as the 'mother' of Christianity (See: Revelation Chapter 12, and my comments soon to be posted). He claims that our salvation is achieved by being in-grafted into the tribes of Judaism, who retain their special place in God's eyes (see: Revelation 7, and my partial notes soon to be posted). He maintains a special concern for the Temple, which is measured by an angel and thus ensured of a special protection (Revelation 11:1-2). And both Jews and Christians are seen as co-enemies of satan in Revelation 12. The New Jerusalem is held up by pillars that have inscribed on them the names of the Tribes of Israel, in Revelation 21.
Over and over, John the Revelator, in contrast to the writer of the Gospel of John, seems to think of Jews and Christians as ultimately part of the same family. The Book of Revelation is in part an appeal to Jews to rethink what they are doing in throwing Christians out of the synagogues, and a way of empowering Christians to turn to their Jewish neighbors and say "no, we are not alien to the people of God, we are all a part of the same nation." The main enemy in Revelation is not the Jews, but satan and the various empires in which he is manifested on earth, like Rome. There are particular Jews who have decided to betray their brothers, and John the Revelator's words to them are harsh. But even they, he says, will come to see the truth and serve at the feet of the brothers they have betrayed (3:9, again).
So here you have two different Christians, writing at about the same time, likely from the same early Christian community, who take vastly different tracks when it comes to Christian attitudes towards Judaism. Mainline Christians have often overlooked or ignored the Book of Revelation. But in truth, it is one of the biggest correctives to Christian anti-Judaism in the entire New Testament. It is in part for this reason that it has become a central, if not the central, book for me in the entire Bible.
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