Bibliografia referenciada en la guia

We can only speculate as to the reasons why the Hellenist members of the Jesus movement embraced views so at odds with those of the Hebrews. J. D. G. Dunn, M. Hengel, E.

Haenchen, and others have argued that the Hellenists seized upon that emphasis in Jesus’

teaching with regard to the Law and the Temple that raised the opposition of the Jewish religious authorities, and resulted in Jesus’ trial and execution.¹⁸⁶ In particular, the Hellenists, as a charismatic eschatological group, focused on Jesus’ apocalyptic pronouncements regarding the imminent destruction of the Temple (Matt 26:61; Mk 14:58;

185 P. F. Esler, “Review of C. C. Hill’s Hellenists and Hebrews”, Biblical Interpretation 3 (1995), 119-123.

186 Haenchen, Acts, 67-68; Hengel, Jesus and Paul, 22-24; Dunn, Jesus, Paul and the Law, 92, 101; idem, Partings, 63;

Meyer, Early Christians, 71; and Conzelmann, Acts, 45.

15:29; Lk 21:5-36; Jn 2:19), the corruption of its cult (Mk 11:15-17; Matt 21:12-13; Lk 19:45-46; Jn 2:13-22), and the inadequacies of the laws governing the dietary proscriptions (Matt 15:10-20; 23:25-26; Mk 7:14-23; Lk 11:37-41) and Sabbath observances (eg., Mk 3:1-6; Matt 12:9-14; Lk 6:1-11).

Such a theory has one obvious fault – Jesus did predict the end of the Temple, which the Hebrews most likely knew. However, that knowledge did not encourage them to criticise the Temple cult or the Mosaic Law that governed its practice. On the contrary, it led them to become quite exemplary in their observance of the Law and their devotion to the Temple. Attempting to tie the Hellenists’ criticisms of the Law and the Temple to Jesus traditions requires that we assume that Jesus’ original disciples understood the import of Jesus’ message far less than the Hellenists who were converted to the movement only after his death.¹⁸⁷ But, surely, the only knowledge the Hellenists had about Jesus was what they had received by way of catechetical instruction from the Hebrews. Are we then to imagine that the former were able to separate the misunderstanding of the latter from the real intent of Jesus’ message? This is a rather difficult assertion to defend. It is far more reasonable to assume that the Hellenists’ negative views on these two Jewish cultural institutions represented a radical departure from the theological position of the original followers of Jesus and their Aramaic-speaking converts. This was a departure that the Hellenist converts to the movement instigated and which, as we shall see presently, ultimately led them to initiate the mission to the Gentiles in Antioch.

H. Räisänen has offered another explanation of the Hellenists’ views.¹⁸⁸ Drawing on recent studies of Jewish attitudes to the Law in the western Diaspora, Räisänen suggests that the Hellenists brought to their newfound faith in Jesus Messiah certain preconceptions about the Law typical of some Diaspora Jews. They saw the Law as an appeal to the individual conscience rather than as rules regulating ritual observances. For such Jews, distant from the Temple in Jerusalem and challenged by the vicissitudes of the surrounding Gentile environment in which they lived, the essence of Law-observance was necessarily seen as being fulfilled by adherence to the “spirit” of the Mosaic Law rather than to the

187 See discussion in Räisänen, Jesus, Paul and Torah, 89-90, 164-165.

188 Räisänen, Jesus, Paul and Torah, 190-197; who is followed by Sim, Matthew and Christian Judaism, 70.

exact “letter” of the Law. Following Räisänen’s argument, D. C. Sim draws attention to the possible parallels between the Hellenists and those Alexandrian Jews, mentioned by Philo (De Mig. 93), who interpreted the Law allegorically, dismissing even the practice of physical circumcision.¹⁸⁹ However, Sim notes that it is difficult to determine the extent to which these “spiritualising” tendencies in Hellenistic Jewish thought influenced the Diaspora Jews who converted to the Jesus movement in Jerusalem. Moreover, the fact that the Hellenists had chosen to migrate to Jerusalem suggests that, prior to their conversion to the Jesus movement, they must have held both the Temple and the Law in high regard. This observation alone sounds a cautionary note to anyone who would wish to draw a simple parallel between Luke’s Jerusalem Hellenists and Philo’s Alexandrian allegorisers.

The problem that confronts us here is that we simply have no firm data to determine precisely what factors led the Hellenists to eschew their previous attachment to Law-observance and Temple worship. We can certainly surmise that, given that most Hellenists could function linguistically only in Greek, the Hebrew-language services of the Temple would have made it extremely difficult for the Greek-speaking Hellenists to participate either fully or enthusiastically in the national cult. Similar linguistic and social differences probably also led to the isolation of the Hellenists from the Aramaic-language ceremonies celebrated by the original Palestinian-Jewish converts to the Jesus movement.

But these details alone do not adequately explain why the Hellenists went much further than their fellow believers in Jesus Messiah at Jerusalem by openly criticising both the Temple and the Law.

Ultimately, the paucity of information makes it impossible to explain their actions.

We must assume that it was something unique to their community’s interpretation of the Christ event that led them to depart from the faith-practice of their Jewish and Christian Jewish fellows. But, all we can say with certainty is that, whatever the cultural, philosophical, or social ingredients that went into the ideological mix predisposing the Greek-speaking Christian Hellenists to their views, it was they who first developed a spirituality and a faith-practice distinct from the Jewish Temple cult and the Mosaic Law,

189 Sim, Matthew and Christian Judaism, 18, 70. For a more complete examination of the influence of Hellenistic philosophy and religion on Jewish thought in the Diaspora, see J. J. Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora (New York: Crossroads, 1983).

not the Aramaic-speaking, Palestinian-born Hebrews, and not the later Gentile converts to Christianity.¹⁹⁰ As a consequence, the Hellenists’ pre-eminent leader Stephen was stoned and their community members alone were scattered. Even though Luke attempts to veil much of the divisive nature of this episode, and we are unable to explain why the division occurred in the first place, these problems should not tempt us to dismiss the dispute as a temporary spat over unimportant financial matters. On the contrary, we have demonstrated that Luke’s material on the Hebrews and the Hellenists reveals explicit evidence of two distinct factions within the earliest Jerusalem church.