Christianity and the Rejection of the Law

A long-winded explanation of why Jews can't eat bacon but Christians can

 
As a final project for a class on the Bible, I wrote an essay entitled "Christianity and the Rejection of the Law." I endeavored to explain the historical shifts that allowed Paul (by interpreting Jesus) to cast down the Mosaic law.  The professor put forth a theory that the repeated conquests of Israel by pagan cultures (Egypt and Babylon in particular) caused the Jews to create the Mosaic Law (dietary restrictions, rules of uncleanness, etc). He mentioned this in lecture, and I developed it in my final paper.

I decided to post a revised version of it here as a response to a post over at Unreasonable Faith.



Nature worship in the ancient Near East

The Egyptians/Babylonians were nature worshipers, emphasizing the cyclical nature of the natural order. “To everything there is a season,” that kind of thing. Furthermore, Egypt and Babylon were both flourishing agricultural states in a relatively arid region. They owed their wealth, and indeed their very lives, to the cyclical flooding of their rivers; in Egypt, the Nile; in Babylon, the Tigris and Euphrates.

Picture taken from KeyWay.ca

Israelites' place in the natural order
These kingdoms always conquered the Israelite peoples. Essentially, the Israelites’ “natural order” was really shitty. To them, cycles were not benevolent forces bringing prosperity and bounty, but rather malevolent forces bringing about periodic invasions by the neighboring kingdoms. This is noted in the Bible– Jews were first slaves in Egypt, then captured by the Babylonians. While the story of the exodus is not historically true as presented in the Bible, belief in this founding myth during the early Christian era would have the same effect.


The institution of the Law
Virtually every aspect of the Mosaic Law is a rejection of and revolt against nature.  The practice of animal sacrifice (instructions: Exodus 29, Leviticus 1-10, 22), while also present in pagan cultures, can be seen as a destruction of a natural being—not for the natural purposes of consumption and the continuation of life, but merely as a gift to a higher power.  The dietary rules (Leviticus 11) are certainly a rejection of nature. The ultimate natural act, that of birth, is unclean according to Leviticus 12:2: “If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days.” Leviticus 15 & 20 and Ezekiel 18 all affirm the uncleanness of menstruating women. But perhaps the most infamous and outright rejection of nature is the practice of circumcision. Instituted in Genesis 17 as a demarcation of the Abrahamic covenant with God, the ritual practice of cutting off a piece of one’s flesh is anti-naturalism at its most evident. The choice of the sexual organ further emphasizes the rejection of nature by associating this practice with sex, a natural act.

The rejection of the Law

If the Jews had this vital reason to institute the Law, how would it later be rejected?  Just like the imposition of the Law, the rejection of the Law arose out of historical pressures. The law could be rejected because keeping the law is hard, because the pax Romana was a relatively good time to be a Jew, and because Jewish proselytizing(!) had created a large body of potential converts, restrained by the onerous Law.

Keeping the Law is a Pain

Perhaps most importantly, keeping the Law is hard. Even the Bible itself admits this: the entire course of the historical books of the Old Testament could be seen as a pattern of falling from the law and regaining it. It is not difficult to imagine how it would be tempting to eat bacon every once in a while, and not mutilate your child's genitals.

A good time to be a Jew

After Julius Caesar defeated Pompey and became emperor, he established Judaism as an official religion. He also excused Jews from paying agricultural taxes every 7th year, the Sabbatical Year when Jews neither planted nor harvested. The Jews were not required to worship the emperor, only make a sacrifice at the temple in his honor. They did this every day until its destruction. Furthermore, Herod the Great performed many legendary building projects throughout the area; he built an artificial harbor and port city named Caesarea and many palaces scattered throughout Judea. His most important project, however, was the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. He transformed the temple into a huge complex. It is the Western retaining wall of this complex that is known today as the Wailing Wall. These occurrences are evidence of the privileged status of the Jews in the early Roman period, relative to other points in their history. The Law was born out of historical chaos: the pax Romana brought order and prosperity.

Jewish proselytizing in ancient Rome
The Pharisees, a sect of Judaism at the time, were active missionaries who sought converts everywhere (Wylen 45). The Jews in Rome itself were very successful proselytes: Horace writes to a critic in his Satires that he and his fellow poets will, “like the Jews… force you to come into our crowd” (Leon 250). In 4 BCE, a group of emissaries from Judea came to Rome to petition for the deposing of Archelaus, the newly installed leader of Judea. When they presented their case, a crowd of 8,000 Jewish men supported them. Historians have estimated that this indicates a Jewish population in Rome of about 40,000 to 50,000 (Leon 14-15, 135). It is estimated that there were a total of perhaps six to seven million Jews throughout the Empire at this time (Leon 135). Its general prevalence and influence can be seen in the fact that the Jewish division of time into weeks (to note the Sabbath) was adopted by the general heathen population (Huidekoper 66). 

Why do we care about Jewish proselytizing?

At this historical moment, Judaism was the most widespread form of monotheism. This was a new form of belief to the Romans at the time. The idea was enticing: the Divine Being of Judaism “took interest in the moral education of mankind… [and showed] interest in man’s moral improvement” (Huidekoper 17-18). The pagan gods of Rome seemed more interested in their own interactions than in the good or ill of humankind. This greater interest in humanity appears to have won over many converts. However, one thing stood in the way: the law. The Mosaic Law was a serious obstacle to accepting Judaism; one might agree with its moral precepts, but have a hard time giving up eating swine and shellfish and circumcising oneself. Huidekoper goes so far as to state that “a Jew who deemed ceremonial observances essential might… nearly repel all heathens “(24). The one who emphasizes monotheism and morality would win many converts. This is exactly what Christianity would later do.

In Summary

At the time of the birth of Christ, there were no longer any threats of invasion by the neighboring states of Babylon and Egypt. The pax Romana had quelled this threat, which was the impetus behind the initial institution of the law. At the time, Jewish evangelicals had brought the idea of morality and monotheism to the Gentile masses. Their efforts were hindered largely due to the difficulty of keeping the Law. The law was prepped to be cast down; its cause was removed, and it hindered the masses, yearning for a (comparatively!) moral, listening God, from converting. It would take an influential Jewish prophet by the name of Jesus to light this powder keg and transform Judaism.

Works Cited
The Bible Authorized King James Version with Apocrypha. New York: Oxford UP, USA, 1998. Print.
"Egyptian Religion." The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 22 Nov. 2009 .
"Egyptian religion." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 22 Nov. 2009 .
Huidekoper, Frederic. Judaism at Rome. Ninth ed. New York: David G. Francis, 1891. Print.
Leon, Harry J. Jews of ancient Rome. Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson, 1995. Print.
"Old Testament Timeline." Wielding the Sword of the Spirit. Ed. Matthew McGee. 1998. Web. 23 Nov. 2009. .
Oxford history of the biblical world. New York: Oxford UP, 1998. Print.
Sayce, Archibald H. The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia; the Gifford lectures on the ancient Egyptian and Babylonian conception of the divine delivered in Aberdeen. Edinburgh T. & T. Clark, 1902. Print. Gifford lectures.
Wylen, Stephen M. Jews in the time of Jesus an introduction. New York: Paulist, 1995. Print.