Popa Emanuel

Quiz 4

Discuss Acts 21:17-26 and its importance for understanding ritual practices of early Jewish
Christians.
The jews of the first century had a religion of temple. In Israel were many categories
like Pharisees and Sadducees, and not all of them were law-centered, but for sure all were in
some way or another related to the temple. Judaism is a religion of the temple par excellence.
Because of that, we find in it, sacrifices, blood, and priesthood. Many religions in that time
and area had temple religions, but only Israel was monolithic in its cultus. Now, Christianity
is the first religion to give up on these elements. For sure it wasn’t a smooth transition
especially for the jews, because the temple is fundamental to their religion.
In Acts 21:17-26, we find an example of how this transition was felt by the apostles,
James, Paul, and others. James is happy that many Jews had been evangelized but, charges
Paul with the accusation that he is teaching the jews not to follow the Jewish custom (ethos)
because he speaks against circumcision which was a requirement to enter the temple rituals.
James advises Paul to go to the temple and do a purification ritual as proof to the thousands of
jews, that he is faithful to Judaism cultus.
In the text, both nomos (law – Torah) and ethos (custom) appear. In the Apocrypha
and New Testament ethos is presented eighteen times and almost every time in a religious
context. Thus in our present text, the religious context is connected to the temple ritual. Paul
ascends to the temple and makes the Nazirite vow that includes sacrificing two turtledoves or
two pigeons. He is doing that in 58 AD after more than 25 yrs after Christ's death on the
cross, to appease the people and the mentality of the council.
Some said that the story is flawed, but others suggest that Paul is being flexible in his
approach „with the jew I made myself a jew to win the jew”. James was aware that jews put
pressure on the Gentile and so he relaxed the requirements but also in the framework of Lev.
17 and 18. The apostles and jews were still in a situation where they miss the point. It was
very hard for them to give up on their religion and believe that they should continue with it in
parallel to Christ fulfilling the real sacrifice.