Bulleted paragraphs below contain extracts from the very good article here by Lawrence H. Schiffman.
- In the aftermath of the destruction, [of the Second temple] the tannaim attempted to draw Judaism together around a common tradition. They regarded Christianity as heretical, and branded the early Christians as minim, Jews holding incorrect beliefs.
- Although they· regarded the Christians as Jews, since they were Jews according to halakhah, the tannaim took a strong stand. They excluded the Christians from serving as precentor in the synagogue, then declared their scriptural texts to have no sanctity, even if they contained the name of God, then prohibited certain forms of commercial and social contact. Yet throughout this first period, there was no challenge to their halakhic status as Jews and no decree that prohibited marriage with them.
- All this was soon to change as a result of developments which took place within the nascent Christian church. Sometime in the mid-first century, the apostle Paul returned to Jerusalem from one of his journeys abroad with a new concept. He had found great interest among gentiles in Christianity. … Paul proposed to his fellow Christians to make it possible to be a Christian without first becoming a Jew. He himself would have preferred the abandonment of the Law for all Christians, since he saw this as the natural result of the coming of Jesus, yet the proposal he made was a compromise with others more attached to Jewish practices. Ultimately, Paul’s approach was accepted [according to Paul] and Christianity was opened to gentile believers who streamed into the new faith, quickly spreading it throughout the neighboring countries.
- It was not long before the tannaim reacted to the changed nature of the Christian community. Whereas the earlier tannaim had faced Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Rabbis now confronted non-Jews (from the halakhic point of view) who constituted a separate religious community.
- It is also possible to follow this process of separation from the perspectives of the Romans and the Christians. The Romans were outsiders who concluded that the schism was permanent at the end of the first century and, accordingly, began to regard the Christians as a separate religious community, excused from paying the fiscus judaicus, the Jewish poll tax.
- In the case of the Christian sources, the matter is somewhat more complex. We can trace the schism in the New Testament itself.
- In the earliest accounts in the Gospels, the Christians see their enemies as the Pharisees. After all, they themselves are Jews.
- Clearly, by the time the later books of the New testament were authored, this schism had become complete from the Christian point of view. Yet, of course the Christians saw themselves as the true Israel and the Jews as having gone astray.
- By the time we get to the Gospel of John, the Jews as a whole are identified as the opponents of Jesus.
Continued in Part 3 here.
- The Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-135 CE) Bar Kokhba’s leadership was supported by the hope – shared by sages and laymen alike – that he was a messianic figure. This was a belief that could not be shared by early Christians, who had designated Jesus as the messiah.
- Under the leadership of Paul and Peter, Christianity turned toward the Greco-Roman pagan world and spread throughout Asia Minor, the Greek Isles and Rome. This meant that increasingly, the Jewish-Christian population of Palestine was of lesser importance when compared with the Gentile Christians spread throughout the Roman world.
- When the city of Jerusalem became off-limits to Jews, including Jewish Christians, in the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba Revolt, the Jerusalem Church came under the control of Gentile Christians. The Roman prohibition of circumcision also distanced Christians from Judaism and the rabbis began to see them as a separate group and not a Jewish sect. Christian sources also increasingly saw Jews as another religious group.
