Everything about Council Of Jerusalem totally explained
Council of Jerusalem (or
Apostolic Conference) is a name applied subsequently to a meeting described in
Acts of the Apostles chapter and probably referred to in
Paul's
letter to the Galatians chapter . The events described there are generally dated to around the year 50, at the latest some time before the death of
James the Just in 62, and before the
First Roman-Jewish War and destruction of the
Second Temple in 70 AD. Paul himself described several meetings with the apostles in
Jerusalem, though it's difficult to reconcile any of them fully with the account in Acts (see
Paul of Tarsus—Council of Jerusalem). Paul claims he "went up again to Jerusalem" (for example, not the first time) with Barnabas and
Titus "in response to a revelation", in order to "lay before them the
gospel (he) proclaimed among the
Gentiles" ;
them being according to Paul "those who were supposed to be acknowledged leaders" : James,
Cephas and
John. He describes this as a "private meeting" (not a public council) and notes that Titus, who was Greek, wasn't pressured to be
circumcised . However, he refers to "false believers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy on the freedom we've in Christ
Jesus, so that they might enslave us" . Paul claims the "pillars" of the Church had no differences with him. On the contrary, they gave him the "right hand of fellowship", he bound for the mission to "the uncircumcised" and they to "the circumcised", requesting only that he remember the "poor" of Jerusalem. Whether this was the same meeting as that described in Acts isn't universally agreed.
Background
The Council of Jerusalem is generally dated to around the year 50, some sixteen years after the death of
Jesus of
Nazareth. It was the first known meeting of the new community's leaders. It took place before the
First Roman-Jewish War, which broke out in 66 AD and the destruction of the Jewish
Temple in 70 AD. At the time, most followers of Jesus were Jewish by birth and even
converts would have considered the
early Christians as a part of
Judaism. According to
Alister McGrath, the
Jewish Christians affirmed every aspect of then contemporary (Second Temple) Judaism with the addition of the belief that Jesus was the messiah. The meeting was called because "certain persons" from
Jerusalem and
Judea, representing the
Jerusalem Church, had come to
Antioch, where
Paul of Tarsus was preaching, and telling prospective converts to the new religion that they couldn't be saved unless they underwent the
Jewish ritual of circumcision. Having disputed fiercely with the
Judaean Christians to no effect, Paul, his fellow missionary
Barnabas and others from Antioch travelled to
Jerusalem to consult with "the
apostles and
elders" of the community.
The issues and outcome
The purpose of the meeting, according to Acts, was to resolve the disagreement in Antioch, which had wider implications than circumcision. Some of the
Pharisees who had become believers demanded that it was "needful to circumcise them, and to command [them] to keep the
law of Moses" .
The primary issue which was addressed related to the requirement of
circumcision, as the author of Acts relates, but other matters arose as well, as the Decree by James indicates. The dispute was between those, such as the followers of the "Pillars of the Church", led by
James who believed the church must observe the rules of traditional
Judaism, and
Paul of Tarsus, who believed there was no such necessity (see also
Supersessionism,
New Covenant (theology)).
At the Council, following advice said to have been offered by
Simon Peter, James, the leader of the
Jerusalem Church, gave his decision (later known as the "
Apostolic Decree"):
» "Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the
Gentiles are turned to God: But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and [from]
fornication, and [from] things strangled, and [from] blood. For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the
synagogues every
Sabbath day" .
The Western version of
Acts (see
Acts of the Apostles) substitutes the positive form of the
Golden Rule for the prohibition against things strangled. This determined questions wider than that of circumcision, most particularly dietary questions but also fornication.
Interpreting the Council's decision
James's Apostolic Decree was that most
Jewish law, including the requirement for circumcision of males, wasn't obligatory for
Gentile converts, possibly in order to make it easier for them to join the movement. However, the Council did retain the prohibitions against Gentile converts eating meat containing blood, or meat of animals not properly slain. It also retained the prohibitions against "fornication" and idol worship. See also
Old Testament Law directed at non-Jews. In effect, however, the Jerusalem Church created a
double standard: one for
Jewish Christians and one for Gentile converts (for the parallel in Judaism, see
Convert to Judaism and
Noachides). The Decree may be the first act of differentiation of the Church from its Jewish roots, depending on when Jewish
Noachide law was developed, see also
List of events in early Christianity. The decision created a category of persons who were members of the Christian community (which still considered itself to be part of the Jewish community) who would be unacceptable to the wider Jewish community, because they were uncircumcised, besides other objections.
Determining what followed depends on how reliable one believes the various texts to be. Some scholars have taken a very skeptical view of the probity of
Acts. Moreover, Paul seems to have refused "to be tied down to particular patterns of behavior and practice." For example, see . To the Church in Corinth he's much more relaxed and allows that there are situations where one can eat food that has been offered to idols — because the idol has no real existence. His attitude towards circumcision varies between his outright hostility to what he calls "mutilation" in to praise in and his willingness that Timothy be circumcised, recorded in . However, such apparent discrepancies have led to a degree of skepticism about the reliability of Acts.
From its position of dominance, due in part to its leadership by James, the Jerusalem Church suffered first persecution and eventual decline, but never total elimination (see for example
Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem and
Jerusalem in Christianity). The question of the relationship with Jews and Jewish Christians continued for some time, indeed it's still debated today.
The
Jewish Encyclopedia article on
Saul of Tarsus
states:
» :According to Acts, Paul began working along the traditional Jewish line of proselytizing in the various synagogues where the
proselytes of the gate [abiblical term, for example see ] and the Jews met; and only because he failed to win the Jews to his views, encountering strong opposition and persecution from them, did he turn to the Gentile world after he'd agreed at a convention with the apostles at Jerusalem to admit the Gentiles into the Church only as proselytes of the gate, that is, after their acceptance of the
Noachian laws .
Jewish Encyclopedia: New Testament — Spirit of Jewish Proselytism in Christianity states:
» :For great as was the success of Barnabas and Paul in the heathen world, the authorities in Jerusalem insisted upon circumcision as the condition of admission of members into the church, until, on the initiative of Peter, and of James, the head of the Jerusalem church, it was agreed that acceptance of the Noachian Laws — namely, regarding avoidance of idolatry, fornication, and the eating of flesh cut from a living animal — should be demanded of the heathen desirous of entering the Church.
Jewish Encyclopedia: Gentiles: Gentiles May Not Be Taught the Torah states:
» :
R. Emden, in a remarkable apology for Christianity contained in his appendix to "Seder 'Olam" (pp. 32b-34b, Hamburg, 1752), gives it as his opinion that the original intention of Jesus, and especially of Paul, was to convert only the Gentiles to the
seven moral laws of Noah and to let the Jews follow the Mosaic law — which explains the apparent contradictions in the New Testament regarding the
laws of Moses and the
Sabbath.
The
Catholic Encyclopedia article on
Judaizers states:
» :Paul, on the other hand, not only didn't object to the observance of the Mosaic Law, as long as it didn't interfere with the liberty of the Gentiles, but he conformed to its prescriptions when occasion required . Thus he shortly after circumcised Timothy, and he was in the very act of observing the Mosaic ritual when he was arrested at Jerusalem (sqq.)
Tim Hegg, a renowned Messianic teacher and apologist states in
Do the Seven, Go to Heaven?:
» :We conclude, then, that interpreting the edict of the Jerusalem Council on the basis of the later
Noachide Laws is both anachronistic and a misunderstanding of the function of the Noachide Laws in the post-destruction rabbinic literature. For not only did the formulation of the Noachide Laws await the post-destruction era, but even when they were forumlated within the rabbinic theology of the later Centuries, they didn't function as a separate body of laws given to Gentiles as a means of attaining a righteous status, nor even as an actual code of ethics for Gentiles. It is wrong, then, to conclude that the Jerusalem Council gave the gentile believers a minimal list of commandments, exempting them from the full expression of God's will in the Torah. Another explanation for the edict must be sought. Since all the prohibitions in the edict find a connection to practices in the pagan temples, it seems most likely that they were given to assure that the gentile believers had entirely distanced themselves from the idolatry of pagan worship.
Joseph Fitzmyer rejects the claim that the
Apostolic Decree is based on
Noahide Law and instead proposes as the basis.
Footnotes
Robert Eisenman in James the Brother of Jesus identifies Paul with Josephus Ananias the Jewish merchant (Jewish Antiquities 20.2.3–4), who proselytized Gentiles teaching them that faith in God is superior to circumcision.
There are two major versions of Acts: Alexandrian and Western; with preference generally given to the Alexandrian, see Bruce Metzger's Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament which has for the Western 15:2, "for Paul spoke maintaining firmly that they should stay as they were when converted; but those who had come from Jerusalem ordered them, Paul and Barnabas and certain others, to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders that they might be judged before them about this question."
According to Bruce Metzger's Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament: "the Apostolic Decree [15.29,15.20, 21.25] ... contain many problems concerning text and exegesis"; "it is possible ... (fornication means) marriage within the prohibited Levitical Degrees, which the rabbis described as "forbidden for porneia", or mixed marriages with pagans (; also compare ), or participation in pagan worship which had long been described by Old Testament prophets as spiritual adultery and which, in fact, offered opportunity in many temples for religious prostitution"; "An extensive literature exists on the text and exegesis"; NRSV has things polluted by idols, fornication, whatever has been strangled, blood; NIV has food polluted by idols, sexual immorality, meat of strangled animals, blood; Young's has pollutions of the idols, whoredom, strangled thing, blood; Gaus' Unvarnished New Testament has pollution of idolatrous sacrifices, unchastity, meat of strangled animals, blood; NAB has pollution from idols, unlawful marriage, meat of strangled animals, blood. Karl Josef von Hefele's commentary on canon II of Gangra notes: "We further see that, at the time of the Synod of Gangra, the rule of the Apostolic Synod with regard to blood and things strangled was still in force. With the Greeks, indeed, it continued always in force as their Euchologies still show. Balsamon also, the well-known commentator on the canons of the Middle Ages, in his commentary on the sixty-third Apostolic Canon, expressly blames the Latins because they'd ceased to observe this command. What the Latin Church, however, thought on this subject about the year 400, is shown by St. Augustine in his work Contra Faustum, where he states that the Apostles had given this command in order to unite the heathens and Jews in the one ark of Noah; but that then, when the barrier between Jewish and heathen converts had fallen, this command concerning things strangled and blood had lost its meaning, and was only observed by few. But still, as late as the eighth century, Pope Gregory the Third 731 forbade the eating of blood or things strangled under threat of a penance of forty days. No one will pretend that the disciplinary enactments of any council, even though it be one of the undisputed Ecumenical Synods, can be of greater and more unchanging force than the decree of that first council, held by the Holy Apostles at Jerusalem, and the fact that its decree has been obsolete for centuries in the West is proof that even Ecumenical canons may be of only temporary utility and may be repealed by disuser, like other laws."
Hillel the Elder when asked by a Gentile to teach the whole Torah while standing on one foot cited the negative form of the Golden Rule, also cited in Tobit 4:15. Jesus in, part of the Sermon on the Mount, cited the positive form as summary of the "Law and Prophets."
Whether or not is a record of the Council of Jerusalem but a different event isn't agreed. Paul writes of a “private interview,” not a Council. It has been argued that Galatians was written as Paul was on his way to the Council (see Paul of Tarsus). Raymond E. Brown in Introduction to the New Testament argues that they're the same event but each from a different viewpoint with its own bias.
Acts 16 says Paul personally circumcised Timothy, even though Timothy was Greek and his father was Greek, because his mother was of the Jewish faith.
Some took "freedom in Christ" to mean lawlessness, for example, .
Possibly a reference to the Ebionites
Hans Conzelman
Rowland, Christopher, Christian Origins (SPCK 1985) p. 234Further Information
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