Rabbi Eliezer, Jewish Believers in Yeshua and Martyrdom

During the spring semester I took a class on "Rabbinic Foundational Stories and Modern Jewish Identities." Our final assignment was to write a paper analyzing a foundational story from Rabbinic literature along a with a modern response to that story. Here is a short version or abstract of my paper. If you want more details, you can read the entire thing here.

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The relationship between Judaism and Christianity in late antiquity has been a subject of increased research in recent years. Many scholars have rejected simplistic explanations of the “parting of the ways” between a particular offshoot from a continuous parent vine in favor of a more nuanced concurrent development of religions based on common roots. The story of the arrest of Rabbi Eliezer b. Hyrcanus on suspicion of heresy (B. Avodah Zarah 16b-17a, Tosefta Chullin 2:24, Midrash Kohelet Rabbah 1:8:4) reveals the complex and multifaceted interaction between early Jewish and Christian communities. The context of this story identifies the heresy in question as Jewish believers in Yeshua. It shows the connection between even great sages such as Rabbi Eliezer and Jewish followers of Yeshua as well as giving a stern warning to those who may be tempted to seek Torah understanding from outside the safety of rabbinic orthodoxy.

When Rabbi Eliezer is arrested, he is tried by a Roman judge. The peculiar trial concludes quickly and abruptly without any actual defense by R. Eliezer. He is able to get the charges dismissed through a clever play on words rather than by cursing Yeshua or denying his affinity with or sympathy to the minim (heretics). Although the legal matter of R. Eliezer’s arrest is settled, the issue still must be addressed in his own conscience and in the community, and the story turns to a discussion of halakhah and interaction with a disciple of Yeshua.

This story suggests several facets in the relationship between Rabbinic Judaism and Jewish Christians. There seems to be enough contact between these communities to make it worth raising the issue in the literature. The discussion itself displays fairly standard halakhic procedure on the part of Yeshua and his disciple, which suggests that the conflict between communities is still an inherently Jewish and internal issue. The conclusion of the matter, however, is that a wise Jew will avoid the Jewish believers in Yeshua and their halakhah or face serious spiritual and moral danger. Conformance to standard rabbinic halakhah as opposed to that of the minim is crucial to maintaining Jewish identity.

Daniel Boyarin responds to this text in his article “Martyrdom and the Making of Early Christianity and Judaism” by emphasizing these ideas in support of his thesis that ideologies of martyrdom developed and ultimately distinguished the Jewish and Christian religions due to the close connection between these communities in the first several centuries. The story serves as a launching point for establishing this connection in the context of a potential martyrdom scenario. He treats the story as foundational both in the development of the philosophy of martyrdom and the blurred lines between Christianity and Judaism in the era of the second to fourth centuries. 

Boyarin discusses the development of Judaism and Christianity in this period. He notes that “without the power of the Orthodox Church and the Rabbis to declare people heretics and outside the system – ‘neither Jews nor Christians,’ in Jerome’s words in his famous letter to Augustine – it remains impossible to declare phenomenologically who is a Jew and who is a Christian.” In his discussion, Boyarin argues that the story speaks to the close relations between the nascent Jewish and Christian communities that in turn reflects how conceptions of martyrdom spread among these communities. The details reflect a closeness between early Jews and Christians that the story itself is trying to subvert. Although we cannot necessarily say anything about the actual historical affiliations of R. Eliezer, he affirms that in this period, it was entirely possible to be both a Pharisee and a follower of Yeshua. Therefore the story opens a window into the complex relationship between followers of the Rabbis and followers of Yeshua in which they are “both recognizing and denying at one and the same time that Christians are us.”

Boyarin’s scholarship and application of stories such as these extends to other expressions of Jewish identity. His work is cited extensively by leaders and members of the modern Messianic Jewish movement as affirmation of the Jewish identity of Jewish believers in Yeshua, even though many elements of his theology and views regarding Israel are probably at odds with mainstream Messianic views. However, scholarly recognition that belief in Yeshua is (or at least was at one point) a valid expression of Jewish identity is very promising for the present Messianic community’s struggle for acceptance from both Rabbinic Jews and Gentile Christians – a struggle that, as Boyarin notes, is very ancient.

Boyarin, Daniel. "Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism." Journal of Early Christian Studies 6.4 (1998): 577-627. Print.