"Encyclopedia of New Religions"
Prof. C. Partridge, p27
The first Christians were the Jews who believed that Jesus was the Jewish messiah. They used an early Gospel of Matthew, and their beliefs are in accordance with the earliest reports of the gospels of Luke and Matthew, and with Jewish prophecy. The term Ebionite "was at first [...] a common name for all Christians, as Epiphanius (d. 403) testifies (Adv. Haer., xxix. 1)." 2. But Ebionite Christianity did not remain the only form of Christianity, and St Paul preached that the Jewish Law was no longer necessary for salvation. This less strict form of Christianity gained many converts, especially amongst the gentiles (non-Jews), for whom circumcision was distateful. Christian groups arose who rejected the Jewish foundation of Christianity. Bart Ehrman in "Lost Christianities" provides a detailed description of the history of many early Christian groups.
"We know of Christian groups taking stands on Judaism that were at polar ends of the spectrum, some groups insisting that the Jewish Law could was to be followed for salvation and others insisting that the Jewish Law could not be followed if one wanted salvation. All of these groups claimed to be representing the view of Jesus himself."Bart Ehrman, "Lost Christianities", p99
The success and popularity of these groups caused the Ebionites to be eclipsed, and the beginnings of the Pauline Christianity as we know it today flourished. This developing Church, and its founders, largely forgot and rejected the Jewish roots of their religion. But, curious Christians later wanted to know things that they did not know, for example when was Jesus was born, or when did he die? So they went in search of their past.
"Indeed, when in 160 Bishop Melito of Sardis went to Judea to discover what had become of the legendary Jerusalem Church, to his dismay he found not the descendants of the apostles, but instead a small group of [...] Christians, who called themselves the Ebionites or 'Poor Men', [who] had their own Gospel of the Ebionites and also a Gospel of the Hebrews, a Gospel of the Twelve Apostles and a Gospel of the Nazarenes. All of these gospels differed significantly from the gospels of the New Testament."
This is not the only time that Church elders went in search of their history, only to discover that what they found was not what they expected. They did not realize that over time their religion had changed, the same as with all other religious groups in history. They discovered that the beliefs of the early Ebionite Christians differed from those of the their developing Church.
"The Ebionite Christians [...] believed that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah sent from the Jewish God to the Jewish people in fulfillment of the Jewish Scriptures. They also believed that to belong to the people of God, one needed to be Jewish. As a result, they insisted on observing the Sabbath, keeping kosher, and circumcising all males. [...] An early source, Irenaeus, also reports that the Ebionites continued to reverence Jerusalem, evidently by praying in its direction during their daily acts of worship.
Their insistence on staying (or becoming) Jewish should not seem especially peculiar from a historical perspective, since Jesus and his disciples were Jewish. But the Ebionites' Jewishness did not endear them to most other Christians, who believed that Jesus allowed them to bypass the requirements of the Law for salvation. The Ebionites, however, maintained that their views were authorized by the original disciples, especially by Peter and Jesus' own brother, James, head of the Jerusalem church after the resurrection.
One other aspect of the Ebionites' Christianity that set it apart from that of most other Christian groups was their understanding of who Jesus was. The Ebionites did not subscribe to the notion of Jesus' preexistence of his virgin birth. [...] For them, Jesus was the Son of God not because of his divine nature or virgin birth but because of his "adoption" by God to be his son. [...] The Ebionites believed that Jesus was a real flesh-and-blood human like the rest of us, born as the eldest son of the sexual union of his parents, Joseph and Mary. What set Jesus apart from all other people was that he kept God's law perfectly and so was the most righteous man on earth. As such, God chose him to be his son and assigned to him a special mission, to sacrifice himself for the sake of others. Jesus then went to the cross, not as a punishment for his own sins but for the sins of the world, a perfect sacrifice in fulfillment of all God's promises to his people, the Jews, in the holy Scriptures. As a sign of his acceptance of Jesus' sacrifice, God then raised Jesus from the dead and exalted him to heaven.
It appears that Ebionite Christians also believed that since Jesus was the perfect, ultimate, final sacrifice for sins, there was no longer any need for the ritual sacrifice of animals."
Bart Ehrman, "Lost Christianities", p99-101
The Pauline Crucifixion of Jesus was Pointless 2002
In Pauline Christianity, Jesus died for rather mystical reasons. It does not make sense to state that Jesus died so that people could know Jesus - as people such as Moses existed before Jesus died on the cross. Nor does it make sense to say that Jesus died so God could forgive, or lower the wages of sin: As God could do that whenever it pleased. Ebionite Christianity did not suffer these problems: Animal sacrifices were made to God but were never perfect; only when (finally) a human who followed the Law perfectly sacrificed himself, was the ultimate sacrifice made, thus ending the need for sacrifices. This introduces no new logical problems into God's story, whereas the Christianity we know today struggles to explain why Jesus was sacrificed at all.
Ehrman goes on to say that the Ebionite Christians did not accept any of the writings of St Paul. It was a long time before the New Testament as we know it was formalized. "Indeed, for them, Paul was not just wrong about a few minor points. He was the archenemy, the heretic who had led so many astray" by saying that you could be saved even without keeping the Jewish Law, "and who forbade circumcision".[Ehrman 2003]
The Gospel of Matthew: History, Myths and Analysis 2002
"Matthew's works were wrote between 90-100CE in Syria, probably written in the same time range as Luke, as they were unaware of each other's existence. The original works of Matthew were completely anonymous and it was not until about 150CE that the author "Matthew" was assigned to the writings. [...] The first two chapters of Matthew, the virgin birth and the genealogy, were not contained in the first versions of Matthew's gospel.
The Ebionites had a very early version of the Gospel of Matthew. There were many versions and editions of the gospels in the early years of Christianity. The Ebionites, being such an early group of Christians, had access to the earlier, much less edited, versions of Matthew.
Ehrman compares the Gospel of Matthew to the teachings of St. Paul, who the Ebionites consider the arch-enemy of truth, starting with Matt. 5:17-20: "Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law and the prophets; I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest stroke of a letter will pass away from the Law until all has taken place. Whoever lets loose one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do likewise will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that if your righteousness does not exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven"
“For Matthew, the entire Jewish Law needs to be kept, down to the smallest letter. [...] It is worth noting that in this Gospel, when a rich man comes up to Jesus and asks him how to have eternal life, Jesus tells him that if he wants to live eternally he must keep the commandments of the Law (19:17). One might wonder: If the same person approached Paul with the same question twenty years later, what would he have said? [Ref: Rom 3:10] It is hard to imagine Paul and Matthew ever seeing eye to eye on this issue.”Bart Ehrman, "Lost Christianities", p99
“Their own version of Matthew, however, may have been a translation of the text into Aramaic. Jesus himself spoke Aramaic in Palestine, as did his earliest followers. It would make sense that a group of Jewish followers of Jesus that originated in Palestine would continue to cite his words, and stories about him, in his native tongue. It appears likely that this Aramaic Matthew was somewhat different from the Matthew now in the canon. In particular, the Matthew used by Ebionite Christians would have lacked the first two chapters, which narrate Jesus' birth to a virgin - a notion that the Ebionite Christians rejected. There were doubtless other differences from our own version of Matthew's Gospel as well.”Bart Ehrman, "Lost Christianities", p102
In the Gospel of Luke a Jew called Simeon praises the child of Joseph and Mary. Luke 2:33 then reads: "And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him". It says this because the author of the Gospel of Luke believed Jesus was born normally. Luke 2:48 is another verse in Luke where Joseph is called Jesus' father.
Jewish Christians know that Jesus is prophesized to result from the male line of David - the Jewish authors of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke both list genealogies in order to prove that this is the case. Jews believed that Jesus was the Human son of Joseph and Mary because that is what prophecy dictated, and early Christians believed it because it's what Matthew and other early Christians texts said.
So far so good; the Ebionite Christians believed all this. They believed that Jesus was 'adopted' by God as a perfect sacrifice, but that Jesus himself was a normal Human being. That Luke 2:33 and 2:48 call Joseph Jesus' 'father' is in accordance with their beliefs, and with common sense.
Luke also contains the story of when Jesus was baptized, and God at that very moment, adopts Jesus. "In the oldest surviving witnesses to Luke's Gospel [the voice from God] quotes the words of Psalm 2:7 "You are my Son, today I have begotten you" [Luke 3:22].
Early scribes were not beyond editing the text in order to prove their own views or to disprove the views of others. When the later Pauline Christians discovered the Ebionites, and found that their Jewish beliefs were different to their own, they could not accept that they were the ones who had deviated from the truth. So, first, they set out to discredit and disprove the Ebionites in literature. Secondly, they burnt all the Ebionites' books.
Three Minor Edits of Luke
Luke 2:33 and Luke 2:48 both contain verses that state that Joseph was Jesus' father. At least, that is what is said in the oldest manuscripts. Many Roman gods and sons-of-gods had virgin births. Verses such as Luke 2:33 supported Ebionite Christians belief in adoptionism. Strangely, in some later manuscripts Luke 2:33 and Luke 2:48 both had the word 'father' edited out. Luke 3:22 where God clearly says that he is adopting Jesus was also edited so that it did not say so. "This is one proto-orthodox alteration that proved remarkably successful. Even though the potentially dangerous ("heretical") form of the text is found in virtually all our oldest witnesses [...] it is the altered form of the text that is found in the majority of surviving manuscripts and reproduced in most of our English translations"Ehrman 2003, p222.
A whole new chapter in Christian belief...
Later versions of Matthew have an extra two chapters inserted at the beginning. This includes the myth of the virgin birth, based on an erroneous translation in the Septugiant. Handily, this mistranslation turned the prophecy that a young woman would have a child, to a prophecy that a virgin would have a child. This handy mistranslation was used heavily in the debate against the Ebionites by later Christians.
The Ebionites were the original Christians: Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. 'Ebionite' was used as a term to describe all Christians, because to start off with, all Christians were Jewish. Those who we now know of as Pauline Christians opposed the Ebionites, after discovering them and realizing that their beliefs differed. Authors such as Tertullian, Origen of Alexandria, and many other intolerant "heresy-hunters" wrote at great length against the Ebionites. Many of the claims made against them were based on misunderstandings of their beliefs, and many anti-Ebionite claims were plainly ridiculousEhrman, 2003. Pauline Christians eradicated the Ebionites, burning all of their books (none survived) and harassing and arresting the people until none were left. They edited Luke 2:33 and Luke 2:48 where Joseph was twice called the 'father' of Jesus so that it did not say so, and they also edited Luke 3:22 where it plainly stated, in accordance with Ebionite beliefs, that God adopted Jesus. Pauline Christians, as non-Jewish Romans, handily came across a mistranslated prophecy that said Jesus would be born of a virgin (like other Roman sons-of-gods), adding a whole two chapters to the beginning of Matthew to prove their point. These edits, now they are uncovered, show that the Ebionites were treated very cruelly and unfairly, and that the original readings of Matthew and Luke both support Ebionite Christianity, rather than the Pauline Christianity that the West has inherited.
If we were to guess which group was the more austere, holy and godly, we would have to guess it was the Ebionites rather than the Pauline Christians who slaughtered, slandered and oppressed them. Unfortunately the victors get to write history, and it is Pauline Christianity that became the legacy of the Roman Empire. After the fourth century, the Ebionites were vanquished.
Types of Christianity in History
Ehrman, Bart
"Lost Christianities" (2003 hardback). Oxford University Press, New York, USA.
Freke, Timothy & Gandy, Peter
"The Jesus Mysteries" (1999). Text taken from 2000 paperback edition. Published by Thorsons, London. [Book Review]
Hodge, Stephen
"Dead Sea Scrolls" (2001). Published by Piatkus books, London UK. Paperback first edition. [Book Review]
Partridge, Christopher (Ed.)
"Encyclopedia of New Religions" (2004 Hardback). Published by Lion Publishing, Oxford, UK.
Notes:
By Vexen Crabtree 2006 Jun 17
