06-28-2008, 03:20 PM
Shlama Akhi Albion,
PROBLEMATIC PASSAGES IN THIS POST REMOVED
I am sorry dear brother but you are seriously mistaken on a wide variety of issues. Nazarenes and Ebionites are not the same thing. Rav Shaul argued with the Ebionites in Acts 15 and the Evyonim split off to form their own movement. The word "evyonim" is derived from the meaning "poor", referring to a very low Christology that the Ebionites had. The Nazarenes had always proclaimed that Y'shua was YHWH; the Ebionites that he was just a man. The Nazarenes kept a full NT canon (22 or 27 is a matter of debate as is the content and correlation to what survived) whereas the Ebionites used a mangled and perverted copy of Matthew and threw out all of the rest of the NT. The Nazarenes accepted Rav Shaul (Paul) from day one. The Ebionites rejected him utterly and in fact still do today.
I can back this up directly from primary sources. The Rabbinics in the year 125 made a clear distinction between the Evyonim and the Nazarenes. I will post Mas Shabbat 116a below in a moment, but let me just sum up first. The Rabbinics placed a ban on the Nazarenes who were ultimately called either "Nizrefe" or Minnim in their literature . The latter term is an acrostic:
Mahaymim (believers in)
Y'shua
(of) Netzeret
While the Ebionites were techincally also Minnim, it is clear the Rabbinics made a distinction between them and the Nazarenes and favored the Ebionites with more respect because their position that Y'shua was a man but still Messiah was more palatable to them. As a result they did NOT lump the two groups together but called the Ebionites "Abedan".
Here is how the Rabbis debated what to do about the DIFFERENT SCRIPTURES that both groups kept:
Come and hear: The blank spaces above and below, between the sections, between the columns, at the beginning and at the end of the Scroll, defile one's hands.13 ??? It may be that [when they are] together with the Scroll of the Law they are different.14 Come and hear: The blank spaces15 and the Books of the Minim16 may not be saved from a fire, but they must be burnt in their place, they and the Divine Names occurring in them. Now surely it means the blank portions of a Scroll of the Law? No: the blank spaces in the Books of Minim. Seeing that we may not save the Books of Minim themselves, need their blank spaces be stated? ??? This is its meaning: And the Books of Minim are like blank spaces.
It was stated in the text: The blank spaces and the Books of the Minim, we may not save them from a fire. R. Jose said: On weekdays one must cut out the Divine Names which they contain, hide them, 17 and burn the rest. R. Tarfon said: May I bury my son if I would not burn them together with their Divine Names if they came to my hand. For even if one pursued me18 to slay me, or a snake pursued me to bite me, I would enter a heathen Temple [for refuge], but not the houses of these [people], for the latter know (of God] yet deny [Him], whereas the former are ignorant and deny [Him], and of them the Writ saith, and behind the doors and the posts hast thou set up thy memorial. 19 R. Ishmael said: [One can reason] a minori: If in order to make peace between man and wife the Torah decreed, Let my Name, written in sanctity, be blotted out in water, 20 these, who stir up jealousy, enmity, and wrath between Israel and their Father in Heaven, how much more so; 21 and of them David said, Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? And am I not grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate then with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.22 And just as we may not rescue them from a fire, so may we not rescue them from a collapse [of debris] or from water or from anything that may destroy them.
R. Joseph b. Hanin asked R. Abbahu: As for the Books of Be Abedan, 23 may we save them from a fire or not? ??? Yes and No, and he was uncertain about the matter.24 Rab would not enter a Be Abedan, and certainly not a Be Nizrefe; 25 Samuel would not enter a Be Nizrefe, yet he would enter a Be Abedan. Raba was asked: Why did you not attend at the Be Abedan? A certain palm-tree stands in the way, replied he, and it is difficult for me [to pass it]. 26 Then we will remove it? ??? Its spot will present difficulties to me.27 Mar b. Joseph said: I am one of them28 and do not fear them. On one occasion he went there, [and] they wanted to harm him.29
Imma Shalom, R. Eliezer's wife, was R. Gamaliel's sister. Now, a certain philosopher 30 lived in his vicinity,
____________________
(13) Cf. supra 14a. This proves that they have the same sacred character as the rest of the Scroll.
(14) The writing there being sound.
(15) Jast. s.v. iuhkd translates, the gospels, though observing that here it is understood as blanks. V. Herford, R.T., ???Christianity in the Talmud???, p. 155 n.
(16) Sectarians. The term denotes various kinds of Jewish sectarians, such as the Sadducces, Samaritans, Judeo-Christians, etc., according to the date of the passage in which the term is used. The reference here is probably to
the last-named. V. J.E., art. Min; Bacher in REJ. XXXVIII, 38. Rashi translates: Hebrew Bibles written by men in the service of idolatry.
(17) v. p. 429, n. 5.
(18) Lit., ???him??? ??? he meant himself but used the third person owing to a reluctance to speak even hypothetically of evil befalling himself.
(19) Isa. LVII, 8; they know of the true God, but have rejected Him, thrusting Him out of sight, as it were.
(20) The reference is to the trial of a wife accused of adultery; v. Num. V, 23f.
(21) Not only do they themselves go astray from God, but lead many others astray from Him.
(22) Ps. CXXXIX, 21f.
(23) The meeting place of early Christians where religious controversies were held (Jast.). Rashi: the books written for the purpose of these controversies; v. also Weiss, Dor, III, p. 166 and n. 13. [The meaning of Be Abedan is still obscure in spite of the many and varied explanations suggested; e.g., (a) House of the Ebionites; (b) Abadan (Pers.) ???forum???; © Beth Mebedhan (Pers.) ???House of the chief Magi???; v. Krauss's Synagogale Altertumer, p. 31].
(24) V. supra 113a.
(25) hprmb hc; a meeting place of the Nazarenes, Jewish Christians, where local matters were discussed and religious debates were held. (Levy).
[Ginzberg, MGWJ LXXVIII, p. 23 regards it as the name of a Persian house of worship meaning the Asylum of Helplessness].
(26) This of course was merely an evasion.
(27) It will leave a hole and render the road impassable.
(28) I am well acquainted with them.
(29) Uncensored text adds: R. Meir called it (the Gospel) ???Awen Gilyon, the falsehood of blank Paper; R. Johanan called it ???Awon Gilyon, the sin of etc. On the whole passage v. Herford, op. cit., pp. 161-171.
(30) Rashi: min (i.e., sectarian).
Mas Shabbat 116a
Christian sources from the fourth century, relying on much more ancient material, also agree with this assessment:
Moreover, they [the Ebionites] deny that he was a man, evidently on the ground of the
word which the Saviour spoke when it was reported to him: "Behold, your mother and your brethren stand without." namely:"Who is my mother and who are my brethren?"And he stretched his hand towards his disciples and said:"These are my brethren and mother and sisters, who do the will of my Father."
(Epiphanius, Panarion 30.14.5)
And here is some more commentary on the Ebionites having heretical interpretations that the Nazarenes did not:
[The Ebionites] say that Messiah was not begotten of Elohm the Father, but created as one of
the archangels ... that he rules over the angels and all the creatures of the Almighty, and that he came and declared, as their Gospel, which is called Gospel according to Matthew, or Gospel According to the Hebrews?,reports:
"I am come to do away with sacrfices, and if you cease not sacrificing, the wrath of Elohim will not cease from you."
(Epiphanius, Panarion 30.16,4-5)
But [The Ebionites] abandon the proper sequence of the words and pervert the saying,as is plain to all from the readings attached, and have let the disciples say:
"Where will you have us prepare the passover?" And him to answer to that: "Do I desire with desire at this Passover to eat flesh with you?"
(Epiphanius, Panarion 30.22.4)
And:
"We shall now especially consider heretics who... call themselves Nazarenes; they are mainly Jews and nothing else. They make use not only of the New Testament, but they also use in a way the Old Testament of the Jews; for they do not forbid the books of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings... so that they are approved of by the Jews, from whom the Nazarenes do not differ in anything, and they profess all the dogmas pertaining to the prescriptions of the Law and to the customs of the Jews, except they believe in [Messiah]... They preach that there is but one [Elohim], and his son [Yahshua the Messiah]. But they are very learned in the Hebrew language; for they, like the Jews, read the whole Law, then the Prophets...They differ from the Jews because they believe in Messiah, and from the Christians in that they are to this day bound to the Jewish rites, such as circumcision, the Sabbath, and other ceremonies." (Epiphanius; Panarion 29; translated from the Greek).
By saying "use the New Testament", Epiphanus is making a clear distinction from the fourth century that the Nazarenes accepted basically the same corpus of books he used; not just Ebionite Matthew. If you think then dear Albion that the Nazarenes and Ebionites are the same, I urge you to go to their websites now and see if they fit this description. They will tell you no--that they never did accept the rest of the NT and still don't accept it even now. Here is some more evidence to back up the different scriptures used by the two groups, this time from Irenaeus:
Those who are called Ebionites agree that the world was made by Elohim; but their opinions with respect to the Lord are similar to those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They use the Gospel according to Matthew only, and repudiate the Apostle Paul, maintaining that he was an apostate from the law. As to the prophetical writings, they endeavour to expound them in a somewhat singular manner: they practise circumcision, persevere in the observance of those customs which are enjoined by the law, and are so Judaic in their style of life, that they even adore Jerusalem as if it were the house of Elohim.
???Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.26.2 (180 CE)
Finally there was a splinter group of Ebionites that are often confused with the ones we are talking about. They believed in a Virgin Birth, but in all other respects shared the beliefs of the others by the same name.
Akhi ALbion, theories are fine and there are many things historically that can be debateable and open to interpretation. This however is not one of those topics. When Rabbinic and early Catholic sources that disagree with each other on everything else agree on this matter and owing to the fact that these people had access to even more ancient material than we do today, the credibility for their combined testimony is about as compelling as ancient records can get. You throw this out and you have to also throw out just about any other beliefs you might have in the relability of Scripture itself and I don't think you want to go down that road.
Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth
PROBLEMATIC PASSAGES IN THIS POST REMOVED
I am sorry dear brother but you are seriously mistaken on a wide variety of issues. Nazarenes and Ebionites are not the same thing. Rav Shaul argued with the Ebionites in Acts 15 and the Evyonim split off to form their own movement. The word "evyonim" is derived from the meaning "poor", referring to a very low Christology that the Ebionites had. The Nazarenes had always proclaimed that Y'shua was YHWH; the Ebionites that he was just a man. The Nazarenes kept a full NT canon (22 or 27 is a matter of debate as is the content and correlation to what survived) whereas the Ebionites used a mangled and perverted copy of Matthew and threw out all of the rest of the NT. The Nazarenes accepted Rav Shaul (Paul) from day one. The Ebionites rejected him utterly and in fact still do today.
I can back this up directly from primary sources. The Rabbinics in the year 125 made a clear distinction between the Evyonim and the Nazarenes. I will post Mas Shabbat 116a below in a moment, but let me just sum up first. The Rabbinics placed a ban on the Nazarenes who were ultimately called either "Nizrefe" or Minnim in their literature . The latter term is an acrostic:
Mahaymim (believers in)
Y'shua
(of) Netzeret
While the Ebionites were techincally also Minnim, it is clear the Rabbinics made a distinction between them and the Nazarenes and favored the Ebionites with more respect because their position that Y'shua was a man but still Messiah was more palatable to them. As a result they did NOT lump the two groups together but called the Ebionites "Abedan".
Here is how the Rabbis debated what to do about the DIFFERENT SCRIPTURES that both groups kept:
Come and hear: The blank spaces above and below, between the sections, between the columns, at the beginning and at the end of the Scroll, defile one's hands.13 ??? It may be that [when they are] together with the Scroll of the Law they are different.14 Come and hear: The blank spaces15 and the Books of the Minim16 may not be saved from a fire, but they must be burnt in their place, they and the Divine Names occurring in them. Now surely it means the blank portions of a Scroll of the Law? No: the blank spaces in the Books of Minim. Seeing that we may not save the Books of Minim themselves, need their blank spaces be stated? ??? This is its meaning: And the Books of Minim are like blank spaces.
It was stated in the text: The blank spaces and the Books of the Minim, we may not save them from a fire. R. Jose said: On weekdays one must cut out the Divine Names which they contain, hide them, 17 and burn the rest. R. Tarfon said: May I bury my son if I would not burn them together with their Divine Names if they came to my hand. For even if one pursued me18 to slay me, or a snake pursued me to bite me, I would enter a heathen Temple [for refuge], but not the houses of these [people], for the latter know (of God] yet deny [Him], whereas the former are ignorant and deny [Him], and of them the Writ saith, and behind the doors and the posts hast thou set up thy memorial. 19 R. Ishmael said: [One can reason] a minori: If in order to make peace between man and wife the Torah decreed, Let my Name, written in sanctity, be blotted out in water, 20 these, who stir up jealousy, enmity, and wrath between Israel and their Father in Heaven, how much more so; 21 and of them David said, Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? And am I not grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate then with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.22 And just as we may not rescue them from a fire, so may we not rescue them from a collapse [of debris] or from water or from anything that may destroy them.
R. Joseph b. Hanin asked R. Abbahu: As for the Books of Be Abedan, 23 may we save them from a fire or not? ??? Yes and No, and he was uncertain about the matter.24 Rab would not enter a Be Abedan, and certainly not a Be Nizrefe; 25 Samuel would not enter a Be Nizrefe, yet he would enter a Be Abedan. Raba was asked: Why did you not attend at the Be Abedan? A certain palm-tree stands in the way, replied he, and it is difficult for me [to pass it]. 26 Then we will remove it? ??? Its spot will present difficulties to me.27 Mar b. Joseph said: I am one of them28 and do not fear them. On one occasion he went there, [and] they wanted to harm him.29
Imma Shalom, R. Eliezer's wife, was R. Gamaliel's sister. Now, a certain philosopher 30 lived in his vicinity,
____________________
(13) Cf. supra 14a. This proves that they have the same sacred character as the rest of the Scroll.
(14) The writing there being sound.
(15) Jast. s.v. iuhkd translates, the gospels, though observing that here it is understood as blanks. V. Herford, R.T., ???Christianity in the Talmud???, p. 155 n.
(16) Sectarians. The term denotes various kinds of Jewish sectarians, such as the Sadducces, Samaritans, Judeo-Christians, etc., according to the date of the passage in which the term is used. The reference here is probably to
the last-named. V. J.E., art. Min; Bacher in REJ. XXXVIII, 38. Rashi translates: Hebrew Bibles written by men in the service of idolatry.
(17) v. p. 429, n. 5.
(18) Lit., ???him??? ??? he meant himself but used the third person owing to a reluctance to speak even hypothetically of evil befalling himself.
(19) Isa. LVII, 8; they know of the true God, but have rejected Him, thrusting Him out of sight, as it were.
(20) The reference is to the trial of a wife accused of adultery; v. Num. V, 23f.
(21) Not only do they themselves go astray from God, but lead many others astray from Him.
(22) Ps. CXXXIX, 21f.
(23) The meeting place of early Christians where religious controversies were held (Jast.). Rashi: the books written for the purpose of these controversies; v. also Weiss, Dor, III, p. 166 and n. 13. [The meaning of Be Abedan is still obscure in spite of the many and varied explanations suggested; e.g., (a) House of the Ebionites; (b) Abadan (Pers.) ???forum???; © Beth Mebedhan (Pers.) ???House of the chief Magi???; v. Krauss's Synagogale Altertumer, p. 31].
(24) V. supra 113a.
(25) hprmb hc; a meeting place of the Nazarenes, Jewish Christians, where local matters were discussed and religious debates were held. (Levy).
[Ginzberg, MGWJ LXXVIII, p. 23 regards it as the name of a Persian house of worship meaning the Asylum of Helplessness].
(26) This of course was merely an evasion.
(27) It will leave a hole and render the road impassable.
(28) I am well acquainted with them.
(29) Uncensored text adds: R. Meir called it (the Gospel) ???Awen Gilyon, the falsehood of blank Paper; R. Johanan called it ???Awon Gilyon, the sin of etc. On the whole passage v. Herford, op. cit., pp. 161-171.
(30) Rashi: min (i.e., sectarian).
Mas Shabbat 116a
Christian sources from the fourth century, relying on much more ancient material, also agree with this assessment:
Moreover, they [the Ebionites] deny that he was a man, evidently on the ground of the
word which the Saviour spoke when it was reported to him: "Behold, your mother and your brethren stand without." namely:"Who is my mother and who are my brethren?"And he stretched his hand towards his disciples and said:"These are my brethren and mother and sisters, who do the will of my Father."
(Epiphanius, Panarion 30.14.5)
And here is some more commentary on the Ebionites having heretical interpretations that the Nazarenes did not:
[The Ebionites] say that Messiah was not begotten of Elohm the Father, but created as one of
the archangels ... that he rules over the angels and all the creatures of the Almighty, and that he came and declared, as their Gospel, which is called Gospel according to Matthew, or Gospel According to the Hebrews?,reports:
"I am come to do away with sacrfices, and if you cease not sacrificing, the wrath of Elohim will not cease from you."
(Epiphanius, Panarion 30.16,4-5)
But [The Ebionites] abandon the proper sequence of the words and pervert the saying,as is plain to all from the readings attached, and have let the disciples say:
"Where will you have us prepare the passover?" And him to answer to that: "Do I desire with desire at this Passover to eat flesh with you?"
(Epiphanius, Panarion 30.22.4)
And:
"We shall now especially consider heretics who... call themselves Nazarenes; they are mainly Jews and nothing else. They make use not only of the New Testament, but they also use in a way the Old Testament of the Jews; for they do not forbid the books of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings... so that they are approved of by the Jews, from whom the Nazarenes do not differ in anything, and they profess all the dogmas pertaining to the prescriptions of the Law and to the customs of the Jews, except they believe in [Messiah]... They preach that there is but one [Elohim], and his son [Yahshua the Messiah]. But they are very learned in the Hebrew language; for they, like the Jews, read the whole Law, then the Prophets...They differ from the Jews because they believe in Messiah, and from the Christians in that they are to this day bound to the Jewish rites, such as circumcision, the Sabbath, and other ceremonies." (Epiphanius; Panarion 29; translated from the Greek).
By saying "use the New Testament", Epiphanus is making a clear distinction from the fourth century that the Nazarenes accepted basically the same corpus of books he used; not just Ebionite Matthew. If you think then dear Albion that the Nazarenes and Ebionites are the same, I urge you to go to their websites now and see if they fit this description. They will tell you no--that they never did accept the rest of the NT and still don't accept it even now. Here is some more evidence to back up the different scriptures used by the two groups, this time from Irenaeus:
Those who are called Ebionites agree that the world was made by Elohim; but their opinions with respect to the Lord are similar to those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They use the Gospel according to Matthew only, and repudiate the Apostle Paul, maintaining that he was an apostate from the law. As to the prophetical writings, they endeavour to expound them in a somewhat singular manner: they practise circumcision, persevere in the observance of those customs which are enjoined by the law, and are so Judaic in their style of life, that they even adore Jerusalem as if it were the house of Elohim.
???Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.26.2 (180 CE)
Finally there was a splinter group of Ebionites that are often confused with the ones we are talking about. They believed in a Virgin Birth, but in all other respects shared the beliefs of the others by the same name.
Akhi ALbion, theories are fine and there are many things historically that can be debateable and open to interpretation. This however is not one of those topics. When Rabbinic and early Catholic sources that disagree with each other on everything else agree on this matter and owing to the fact that these people had access to even more ancient material than we do today, the credibility for their combined testimony is about as compelling as ancient records can get. You throw this out and you have to also throw out just about any other beliefs you might have in the relability of Scripture itself and I don't think you want to go down that road.
Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth