History of Messianic Jews

Though the term Messianic Jew is relatively new, the history of Messianic Jews, a movement of Jews following Jesus, began nearly two thousand years ago with the first followers of Jesus. This early Jesus-movement was at the outset a Jewish movement. Jesus was himself Jewish, of course, and he taught throughout Israel in Jewish communities and synagogues as well as in the Temple in Jerusalem.

The Early Days

Jesus’ Hebrew name was Yeshua, and his audience were almost entirely Jews. (Some Gentiles attended synagogue without converting to Judaism. Known as “God-fearers,” they would also have numbered among his listeners.) His language was Aramaic (the language of daily life) as well as Hebrew (used in the liturgy). He gave explanations of the Tanakh (Old Testament) and told parables, which were stories with a point understandable within the Jewish culture of the time.

The New Testament records an occasion when Jesus was invited to speak in the synagogue of his hometown. On one Shabbat, he received what today we would call an aliyah (a call to the bema or pulpit). Reading the Haftarah portion from Isaiah 61 which described the mission of the Messiah, Jesus declared that he himself was that Messiah described by Isaiah (see Luke 4:16–21). While his sermon provoked controversy, it is clear that his early ministry began in Jewish houses of worship.³

³

Jesus’ First Jewish followers

Likewise, the first followers of Jesus were Jewish. They observed the Jewish holidays, practiced Jewish traditions, spoke Aramaic and Hebrew, and believed that Jesus was the Messiah promised in the Hebrew Scriptures. Papias, a non-Jewish leader in the early church, even claimed that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew. His claim has not been universally accepted, but many agree that if Matthew did not write his gospel in Hebrew, he clearly wrote it in a Jewish dialect of Greek, because its grammar mirrors that of Aramaic and is distinct from that of other New Testament books.⁴ One scholar describes the early Jewish followers of Jesus as those who, “practice circumcision, [and] persevere in the observations of those customs which are enjoined by the Law.”⁵

For the original Jesus-movement, the first dilemma they wrestled with did not concern Jews believing in Jesus but Gentiles who did. Leaders of the movement debated how their communities should think about Greek and Roman followers of Jesus. Did Gentile believers in Jesus need to convert to Judaism? At a council held in Jerusalem, the leaders decided that Gentiles may follow Jesus without converting to Judaism, because in fulfillment of God’s promises in the Tanakh, Jesus is the savior of both Jews and Gentiles (Acts 15). In other words, faith in Jesus was open to non-Jews and not just to Jews—a striking reversal from the way many people think about faith in Jesus today.

So, What Happened? The “Parting of the Ways”

If the original Jesus-movement was thoroughly Jewish, how did that movement (the Church) become largely Gentile? The “parting of the ways” came about slowly and over the course of centuries. However, there were specific events that brought about the parting of the Church from her Jewish origins.

One early development was the expulsion of Jesus’ followers from synagogues (John 9:22). This would have forced them to establish independent communities.

Divisions deepened in the First Jewish Revolt against Rome in the years leading up to 70 AD. During the Roman siege of Jerusalem, with armies surrounding the city, Jewish followers of Jesus recalled his prophecy that the city would be destroyed and his instructions to flee (Matt. 24:16). They left for Pella, located on the east bank of the Jordan. There they established their own community.⁶ The wider Jewish community viewed these refugees as unpatriotic traitors for abandoning the nation in its time of distress.

Destruction of Jerusalem 70 AD

Resentment further intensified in 135 AD when Bar Kochba led a second revolt against the Romans. Rabbi Akiva, the famous sage, declared the leader of the insurrection, nicknamed Bar Kochba, to be the Messiah. He predicted that Bar Kochba would defeat the Romans and usher in the Messianic Age. Jewish followers of Jesus could not in good faith follow someone they considered a false Messiah and so withdrew their support. Though the rebellion was quashed, and Bar Kochba was indeed found to be a false messiah, Jesus-followers were further ostracized from the Jewish community.⁷

In the Second and Fourth Centuries

In spite of growing resentment and theological divide, many continued to secretly attend the synagogue. Historian Philip Alexander described a thriving Messianic Jewish community in the Galilee during the second century AD when rabbinic Judaism was emerging. Messianic Jews attended synagogues, lived among other Jews, and practiced Torah.

Jewish-Christians were scattered through the Jewish towns and villages of the Galilee. They lived like other Jews. Their houses were indistinguishable from the houses of other Jews. They probably observed as much of the Torah as did other Jews. They studied Torah and developed their own interpretations of it.”⁸

Epiphanius, a fourth-century church leader, described one particular Messianic Jewish community of his century. He wrote that they called themselves Nazarenes, kept kosher, practiced Torah, and lived in the Jewish community.

[They] live according to the preaching of the Law as among the Jews…. They have a good mastery of the Hebrew language.… Only in this respect they differ from the Jews and Christians: with the Jews, they do not agree because of their belief in Christ, with the Christians because they are trained in the Law, in circumcision, the Sabbath and the other things.⁹

Further Divisions

Despite the fact that many Jewish believers remained integrated into Jewish life, as rabbinic Judaism developed and took form, the Tannaim—the earliest generation of Talmudic rabbis—sought to define established Judaism. They attempted to draw a line distinguishing those who were “in” from those who were “out.” The stage for this struggle was in the community center of Jewish life—the synagogue. In the second century, if not earlier, a prayer was introduced to the liturgy to expose Messianic Jews for the purpose of banishing them from communal life. Called the Birkat HaMinim (Benediction of the Apostates), it was introduced into the Amidah, part of the Shabbat liturgy. It called for the destruction of apostates, among whom Jewish followers of Jesus were included. A copy of this benediction, found in an ancient Cairo synagogue, condemned the Nazarenes and called a curse upon them. It read, “May the Nazarenes … instantly perish: may they be blotted from the book of the living.”¹⁰

Secret believers ended up outing themselves when they omitted the benediction during the synagogue service, for they would not pronounce a curse upon themselves. Over time, Jewish followers of Jesus either voluntarily or unwillingly left the synagogue and ultimately the Jewish community.

Greece and Rome

Early Greek and Roman Christians played their part as well in ostracizing the early Messianic Jews. As the Church became predominately Gentile, these non-Jewish Christians assumed that God had rejected the Jewish people for their rejection of Jesus. They looked down up Jewish Christians and Jewish Christianity, preferring Greco-Roman over Hebrew culture. John Chrysostom, in a series of homilies against Jewish believers in Jesus, condemned them as apostates for maintaining their Jewish traditions. Moreover, he condemned Christians who continued to celebrate the Passover or maintain Jewish traditions. “Indeed, their Passover and Feast of Tabernacles, and whatever else they do, are profane and abominable.”¹¹ Interestingly, this shows an undercurrent of pro-Jewish feeling among the common people, even as their leaders pushed in the opposite direction.

As time went on, Jewish believers in Jesus were pressed to fully embrace the Greco-Roman culture, and to take on Christian names when they were baptized. They were forbidden from forming Jewish-oriented communities or maintaining Jewish traditions. Ejected from the Jewish community, and forced to assimilate into the Church, the visible Messianic Jewish community had all but disappeared by the fourth century, despite Epiphanius’ comments mentioned above.

“Direct evidence of Jews who practiced Messianic Judaism after the First Council of Nicaea [325 A.D.] is scanty. This is because the view that Jews could not become Christians and remain Jews.”¹²

Through the Centuries: A Remnant of Jewish Believers in Jesus

Painting of Saint Jerome by Caravaggio

Nevertheless, a remnant of Jewish believers survived throughout church history, though the extent of their self-identification as Jews is unclear. Jerome, who translated the Vulgate (the Latin Bible), claimed he learned Hebrew from, and was assisted by, a Jewish Christian in his monumental task.¹³

Count Joseph was another such Jewish believer. A disciple of none other than the eminent Rabbi Hillel II, he came to embrace Jesus during his rabbinic studies. When his beliefs were found out, he was expelled from the synagogue. Constantine discovered him and appointed him as a count in the Roman Empire. Count Joseph, as he became known, went on to build churches in Judea and Asia Minor.¹⁴

Solomon Halevi

Solomon Halevi

Solomon Halevi, son of a wealthy Jewish merchant, was born in Burgos in 1351. He became learned in the Talmud and was ordained the Rabbi of Burgos where he attained renown for Jewish scholarship. He was praised by the Medieval Rabbi Abarbanel for his exegetical commentary on Isaiah 34. In the course of his studies, he began discussing theology with Christian theologians over the writings of Thomas Aquinas. He was so impressed that he began his own personal investigation of Christian theology which led him to explore the Messianic prophecies that described Jesus. He went on to study the New Testament. In 1390, he embraced Jesus along with the rest of his family. Solomon went on to study theology at the University of Paris, earning a doctorate. He continued interacting with Jewish scholars and even wrote a Purim Play.¹⁵

Gregory Abu’l Faraj

Gregory Abu’l Faraj (surnamed Gregory Bar-Hebraeus) was born 1226 AD, in Melitena, Greece, just on the border of modern Bulgaria. His father was a Jewish physician in the Jewish community. At some point in his youth, his father embraced Jesus along with the rest of the family. When he was 20, the family moved to Antioch and Gregory pursued a theological education. He was ordained Bishop of Gubus and ministered in the Byzantine Church. He mastered Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and Arabic. However, he had a special passion for his Jewish heritage. “He possessed the Jewish whole-heartedness and love of thoroughness.”¹⁶ Gregory was a prolific writer. He authored a history of the world titled The Chronicon Syriacum. He compiled a two-volume history of the church, Ecclesiastical Chronicle, still in use by the Eastern Orthodox Church. He edited a Syriac encyclopedia, and a grammar of the Syriac language, remaining a valuable reference for scholars of the Syriac and ancient literature today.¹⁷

Benjamin Disraeli

Benjamin Disraeli

Some Jewish believers became heads of state. During the reign of Queen Victoria in the late nineteenth century, the Hebrew-Christian¹⁸ Benjamin Disraeli was elected Prime Minister of the British Empire. Many British citizens were suspicious of a Jew as their head of state. They accused Disraeli of being a crypto-Jew, a convert to Christianity who secretly practiced Judaism. His Christian beliefs were frequently questioned. Disraeli vehemently denied these charges. He declared that he was fully Jewish and fully Christian. When the queen asked him if he was a Jew or a Christian, he replied, “Madam, I am the missing page between the Old and the New Testament!”¹⁹

Daybreak: The Dawn of the Modern Messianic Jewish Movement

With the dawn of the Enlightenment, religious tolerance became more widespread. Jewish followers of Jesus found it easier to assemble, and identified as Hebrew-Christians.²⁰ Joseph Samuel Frey founded a Hebrew-Christian congregation in London in the early nineteenth century. Frey was a German Jew who had come to faith in Jesus on the Continent. He moved to London and applied for missionary service with the Church of England, but was rejected because of his Jewish background! He decided to remain in London where he could reach his own Jewish people and establish a Hebrew-Christian community. The organization he established became known as the London Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jewish People. His congregation was called Beni Abraham (Children of Abraham).²¹ The congregation celebrated Jewish holidays, held services, and attracted Jewish inquirers to its meetings. The organization continues today as the Christian Ministry Among the Jews.

Joseph Rabinowitz

Joseph Rabinowitz

In Eastern Europe, a Zionist and former Hasidic Jew embraced Yeshua and founded a Torah-practicing Messianic synagogue in the heart of the Jewish Pale of Settlement. Joseph Rabinowitz grew up in Russia in a Hasidic community. At age 19, after getting married, his brother-in-law gave him a Hebrew New Testament. Rabinowitz left the Hasidic community and traveled to Palestine, thereby escaping economic and political persecution. He became disillusioned with secular Zionism and despaired about the equally depressed condition of the Jewish community in Palestine. As he looked upon the Temple Mount, he was inspired that the future of Israel was in the hands of Yeshua. Right on the Mount of Olives, he embraced Yeshua. He returned to Europe where he was baptized and settled in Kishinev, Moldovia. There he preached the gospel, gathered a community of Messianic Jews, and established a Messianic Synagogue that he called Israelites of the New Covenant. The congregation met on Saturday, observed Jewish customs, and identified themselves with the local Jewish community all the way up to World War II when the community was eradicated.²²

Leopold Cohn

Leopold Cohn

Another figure in the modern Messianic Jewish movement was Leopold Cohn, a Talmudic scholar and Austria-Hungarian rabbi.²³ One evening as he studied Talmud he wrote, “I at one time read the following: ‘The world is to stand six thousand years: two thousand confusion…two thousand with the law, and two thousand the time of the Messiah.”²⁴ Realizing the world is more than six-thousand years old, according to the Hebrew calendar, he concluded the Messiah should have come. “I was suprprised , and asked myself, ‘Is it possible that the time…of our Messiah has passed away?”²⁵

Cohn immigrated to the U.S. in the late nineteenth century. In 1892, he met a group of Hebrew Christians in New York City who gave him a Yiddish New Testament. After reading it, he realized that Jesus was the promised Jewish Messiah. “My feelings could not be described! For many years my thoughts had been occupied almost continually with the coming of the Messiah. Surely this book has come to me directly from above.”²⁶

Birthing Messianic Jewish Congregations

More Hebrew-Christian congregations were formed in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. In 1866, Carl Schwartz founded an association known as the Hebrew-Christian Alliance of Great Britain. This alliance brought together Jewish believers, congregations, and religious organizations. In the early twentieth century, a similar alliance was formed in the U.S., where congregations thrived in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia. These congregations celebrated Hanukkah, Passover, and observed the High Holidays. Most, however, still met on Sundays. They were associated with Christian denominations or mission organizations, and carefully avoided appearing too Jewish, because many church leaders were suspicious that their Jewish practices meant that they were drifting from religious orthodoxy.²⁸

But this was also in keeping with the fact that throughout the 1930s and ’40s, most Jewish-Americans downplayed their Jewishness. Anti-Semitism was on the rise in Europe, and anti-immigrant nativism was thriving in the U.S. Among Jews, it was not advantageous to flaunt their ethnic identity and stick out.

The Birth of the Modern Messianic Jewish Movement

However, beginning in the 1960’s, a cultural revolution swept across North America. Young adults broke away from their parents’ traditions. African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Jewish-Americans took pride in their identity and heritage. For decades, Jewish-Americans had maintained a low profile. Now, though, a new generation of young people enthusiastically brandished their identity, and were proud to be called Jews. Jewish pride peaked following the Six-Day war, when in 1967 the State of Israel recaptured East Jerusalem. For the first time in almost 2,000 years, Jerusalem was again in Jewish hands, and Jews had access to the ancient Wailing Wall.

Jewish Roots of Faith

Along with the wave of Jewish patriotism, Christians began taking new interest in the Jewish roots of their faith. They encouraged Jewish believers to be proud their Jewish roots and explore their rightful heritage.²⁹ In 1972, at a conference of the Hebrew-Christian Alliance, a group of young Jewish believers voted to change the organization’s name to the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America (MJAA). They described themselves as Messianic Jews instead of Hebrew Christians, and identified their practice as Messianic Judaism instead of Hebrew-Christianity. They called their congregations Messianic Synagogues, and their religious leaders rabbis. Many congregations, who still met on Sunday, moved their Shabbat services to Friday night or Saturday morning. They held Torah services and used Messianic siddurim (prayer books).³²

Messianic Jews Today

Today, there are as many as 250,000 Messianic Jews in the U.S.; 20,000 in Israel; and as many as 350,000 worldwide.³³ Second- and even third-generation Messianic Jews, who were raised in Messianic Jewish homes and have always identified as Jewish-believers in Jesus, are emerging as leaders of the movement. Most Jewish people have at least heard of Messianic Jews. They are aware that there are some Jewish people who believe in Jesus and continue to live as Jews. Others nevertheless maintain that a person cannot accept Jesus as the Messiah and still be Jewish. Even that trend, though, is changing. A 2013 Pew Research study found that a growing number of Jews believe that a Jew who embraces Jesus is still Jewish. “34% [of Jewish-Americans] say a person can be Jewish even if he or she believes Jesus was the messiah.”³⁴

Endnotes

1. “Defining Messianic Judaism,” UMJC, July 20, 2005, para. The Basic Statement.

2. “The Messianic Movement,” MJAA, 2017, para. Introduction.

3. In 2012 archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority, excavating ancient Nazareth, may have discovered the very synagogue described by Luke. Solani, who sponsored the excavation says, “We cannot doubt that Jesus would have been there sometime. The first Christian communities used to gather in the synagogues. They were observant Jews.” “Archaeologists in Israel Discover Synagogue Dating from Time of Jesus,” The World (Washington DC: Public Radio International, January 7, 2013).

4. D Turner, Matthew, vol. 1, Baker Exegetical Commentary Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 15.

5. Hugh Schonfield, The History of Jewish Christianity (London, UK: Duckworth, 1936), 40.

6. Eusebius. Ecclesiastical History, 3:20.

7. Schonfield, The History of Jewish Christianity, 75.

8. Philip Alexander, “The Early Centuries: Jewish Believers in Early Rabbinic Literature,” in Jewish Believers in Jesus, ed. Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2007), 686.

9. David J. Rudolph and Joel Willitts, eds., Introduction to Messianic Judaism: Its Ecclesial Context and Biblical Foundations (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013), Kindle Loc. 367.

10. D. Instone-Brewer, “The Eighteen Benedictions and the Minim Before 70 CE,” Journal of Theological Studies 54, no. 1 (2003): 25-24.

11. John Chrysostom, Adversus Judaeos Oratio 2, ed. Paul Halsall, trans. Roger Pearse, Online, vol. 98, Adversus Judaeos, Patrologia Graeca (New York, NY: Fordham University, 2002), 43.

12. Rudolph and Willitts, Introduction to Messianic Judaism, Kindle Loc. 379.

13. “St. Jerome,” Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica, February 2, 2017).

14. Schonfield. p. 70.

15. Ibid. p. 81.

16. Ibid. p. 84.

17. D. Wilmshurst, ed., Bar Hebraeus, the Ecclesiastical Chronicle: An English Translation. (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2016), ix–xvii.

18. The term “Hebrew-Christian” became preferred by many Jewish believers in the 19th  and 20th centuries. As with “Hebrew Home for the Aged” or “Hebrew National” hot dogs, the term “Hebrew” emphasized Jewish nationality.

19. Stanley Weintraub, Disraeli: A Biography (New York, NY: Truman Talley Books, 1993).

20. See note 16.

21. Joseph Samuel Christian Frederick Frey, Narrative of the Rev. Joseph Samuel C. F. Frey, 11th Ed. (New York, NY: D. Fanshaw Printers, 1834).

22. Kai Kjaer-Hansen, Joseph Rabinowitz and the Messianic Movement: The Herzl of Jewish Christianity, trans. Birger Petterson (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Pub Co, 1994).

23.  Leopold Cohn, To an Ancient People: The Autobiography of Dr. Leopold Cohn (New York, NY: Chosen People Ministries, 1996), 6.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid. 7.

26. Ibid. 12.

27. What One Rabbi Discovered. (2017). ISSUES: A Messianic Jewish Publication, 5(1). Retrieved from Issues, What One Rabbi Discovered.

28. Yaakov Ariel, Evangelizing the Chosen People: Missions to the Jews in America, 1880–2000 (Durham, NC: Univ of North Carolina Press, 2000).

29. Ibid. p. 198.

30. Ibid. p. 197.

31. Ibid. p. 238.

33. Sarah Posner, “Israel’s Best Friends or Jews’ Mortal Enemies?,” Moment Magazine – The Next 5,000 Years of Conversation Begin Here, July 2, 2013.

34. “A Portrait of Jewish Americans,” Demographic, Religion and Public Life Project (Washington DC: Pew Research Center, October 1, 2013), 58.

35. “Ahavat Zion,” Ahavat Zion, 2017, para. Services.

36. “Beth Israel Worship Center,” 2017.

37. “Tree of Life Bible Society,” Tree of Life Bible Society, 2017, para. About Us.