The early Church fathers did not see themselves as a “New Israel”, but as Israel itself.
In fact, not all ethnic Jews at the time of Christ were considered part of Israel either.
The great Jewish Rabbinic scholar Daniel Boyarin argues that within Judaism itself, there was a distinction as to who and what constituted Israel :
“the Mishna strongly supports this analysis, even suggesting the conclusion that "Sadducees" were not considered "Israel," although in this instance on grounds of ritual difference, not doctrine…
….for rabbinic discourse there are Jews who are outside of "Israel," and that these Jews are called variously minim and Sadducees…..there are historical and genealogical Israelites who are not "Israel."
….the Rabbis are in these texts appropriating the name "Israel" for those who hold their creed and follow the ways that they identify as the "ways of Israel," and the "Sadducees" are heretics who are beyond the pale and outside the name Israel.”
In fact, not all ethnic Jews at the time of Christ were considered part of Israel either.
The great Jewish Rabbinic scholar Daniel Boyarin argues that within Judaism itself, there was a distinction as to who and what constituted Israel :
“the Mishna strongly supports this analysis, even suggesting the conclusion that "Sadducees" were not considered "Israel," although in this instance on grounds of ritual difference, not doctrine…
….for rabbinic discourse there are Jews who are outside of "Israel," and that these Jews are called variously minim and Sadducees…..there are historical and genealogical Israelites who are not "Israel."
….the Rabbis are in these texts appropriating the name "Israel" for those who hold their creed and follow the ways that they identify as the "ways of Israel," and the "Sadducees" are heretics who are beyond the pale and outside the name Israel.”
As Boyarin further explains,
"Jewish sectarianism as a form of decentralized pluralism by default had been replaced by the binary of Jewish orthodox and Jewish heretics: the latter comprising those who are Jews and say the wrong things and may therefore no longer be called “Israel”.'
"Jewish sectarianism as a form of decentralized pluralism by default had been replaced by the binary of Jewish orthodox and Jewish heretics: the latter comprising those who are Jews and say the wrong things and may therefore no longer be called “Israel”.'
Read his paper HERE.
Shaye Cohen states that, “this rabbinic ideology is reflected in Justin’s discussion of the Jewish sects: there are Jews, i.e., the “orthodox” and there are sects, among them the Pharisees, who scarcely deserve the name Jew”.
Cohen notes that, “All of the persistent sectarians” of “‘Pharisees,’ ‘Sadducees,’ and ‘Christians’ ... were cursed in the birkhat haminim”.
Recall Paul’s instruction to the church of Rome that, “they are not all Israel, which are of Israel” (Rom 9.6)
Indeed, in the earliest moments of the Gospel nar- rative, John the Baptist makes the Abrahamic claim to those gathered at the Jordan River that, “God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham” (Mt. 3.9).
Peter Richardson in Israel in the Apostolic Church suggests that John’s cleansing of sins in the Jordan was a “proselyte baptism which has for its presupposition that all Jews have forfeited their right to be Israelites, have become as Gentiles, and there- fore have to be readmitted”.
In his letter to the Magnesians, St Ignatius writes, “For if even unto this day we live after the manner of Judaism, we avow that we have not received grace: for the divine prophets lived after Christ Jesus”. (Ign. Magn. 8:2).
In the same epistle, the bishop of Antioch puts it another way: “For Christianity did not believe in Judaism, but Judaism in Christianity, wherein every tongue believed and was gathered together unto God” (Ign. Magn. 10:3).
For Ignatius, it was the contemporaneous expression of Judaism that was out of step with the Israelite faith of the prophets, not Christians who represented the fulfillment and realization of their prophecies.
Indeed, contrast to modern Rabbinic Jewish notions, one never needed to be ethnically Jewish, HERE Stephen de Young writes,
“Importantly, when this people left Egypt, it included an ethnically mixed group of Egyptians and other Semitic migrants (Ex 12:38). This group is not mentioned again in the Torah as a distinct class because these families are integrated into the nation and people of Israel and become some of its founding members.
Of all of the generation which came out of Egypt, only two men, Joshua and Caleb, entered into and took possession of the promised land (Numbers 13:26-14:24).
All the rest, including Moses himself, died in the wilderness as a result of Caleb is, however, the son of Jephunneh, and Jephunneh is repeatedly identified as being a Kenizzite (Num 32:12; Josh 14:6, 14).
The Kenizzites were a Canaanite people who already lived in Canaan at the time that Abraham had arrived there (Gen 15:19).
Caleb and his family were among the many Semitic migrants to Egypt during this period, and yet through his faithfulness to Yahweh and his participation in the events from Passover to Pentecost, he became a part of the tribe of Judah, even one of its chief men, and an inheritor of the promises to Abraham (Josh 14:13-14; 21:43-45).
These Gentiles are not naturalized citizens or converts to the religion of Judaism, rather they, like Caleb, are part of one of the tribes of Israel, children of Abraham, and inheritors of all of those promises.
The phrases “the church replaces Israel” or “the church is a new Israel” are therefore nonsensical once the terms in which the scriptures speak is understood. The church is Israel. Specifically, the church is the assembly of Israel, God’s people, to offer worship, praise, and sacrifice to their God. It is not that God’s people are no longer an ethnic or national entity, it is rather that God’s people and inheritance were never an ethnic entity, and only ever so briefly a national one.
This is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Hosea, after Yahweh had declared Israel to be ‘not my people’ that Israel would be restored when a people which did not yet exist would be called his people while at the same time those who had been rejected were declared to be his people once again (Hos 1:10; 2:23; Rom 9:25-26).
God created a people for himself and called it Israel. This group was not a nation or an ethnicity. It was a group formed by participation in the Passover and the giving of the covenant (Pentecost). God knew that most of this group would be unfaithful, but he bore with them for a time and then scattered the unfaithful among the nations. Then when he regathered and reconstitutes Israel, he did it from the nations into which those tribes had been dispersed.
So Israel and God’s people are synonymous terms. This means that the assembly (church) today is identical to the assembly of Israel in the Old Testament. We are all, in the church, Israelites, though we are not all Judeans (Jews). But Judah/Judea was never all of Israel. It was the part from which the king (I.e. Messiah) came.”
Many Christians think Paul expects a restoration of Jews in the distant future, and some have seen the modern state of Israel as a fulfillment of Romans 9–11.
This is wrong.
As Peter Leithart, a protestant scholar, says : “The prophets of the Hebrew Bible testified that a time would come when judgment would come upon Israel after their return from exile. At this point, much of Israel would be cut off, but a remnant would be purified and preserved by the fire of judgment.
This remnant would become the basis for a new Israel, into which the nations would stream.
It is St. Paul’s understanding in the uncontroversially Pauline Epistle to the Romans that this had taken place in the coming of Christ (Rom. 11:1–24), an understanding also found in St. John’s Gospel. The Church is a new people of God, a renewed Israel, made up of the faithful remnant of Israel of the Old Covenant into which Gentiles who have come to Christ have been grafted. Those returning from the nations replace the tribes scattered to the nations so that in the end all Israel will be saved."
It’s odd to see modern evangelicals disagree with Paul and the Bible :
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, *heirs according to the promise*.”
Romans 9:6, 7 confirm this: "Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham just because they are descendants."
In John 8:39 the Jews defend themselves against Jesus' criticisms by saying, "'Abraham is our father.' Jesus said to them, 'If you were Abraham's children, you would do what Abraham did.'"
Jesus shows us that they are not Abraham's children, even though they are Jews.
Finally, we must ask how the modern state of Israel is related to Abraham or the Israelite religion. Is Israel a nation given by God, and for God ? No, Israel is one of the least religious nations on earth. Only 30% of Israelis say they are religious, THIS survey finds
If it’s all about genetics, then the Palestinians are just as likely to be related to the ancient Israelites as modern Jews, and in some cases, more so, as has been acknowledged by Jewish historians, including two of the founders of the modern state of Israel, David Ben-Gurion and Itzhak Ben-Zvi. “Jews and Arabs are all really children of Abraham," says Harry Ostrer, M.D., Director of the Human Genetics Program at New York University School of Medicine HERE, and he’s right.
In the same epistle, the bishop of Antioch puts it another way: “For Christianity did not believe in Judaism, but Judaism in Christianity, wherein every tongue believed and was gathered together unto God” (Ign. Magn. 10:3).
For Ignatius, it was the contemporaneous expression of Judaism that was out of step with the Israelite faith of the prophets, not Christians who represented the fulfillment and realization of their prophecies.
Indeed, contrast to modern Rabbinic Jewish notions, one never needed to be ethnically Jewish, HERE Stephen de Young writes,
“Importantly, when this people left Egypt, it included an ethnically mixed group of Egyptians and other Semitic migrants (Ex 12:38). This group is not mentioned again in the Torah as a distinct class because these families are integrated into the nation and people of Israel and become some of its founding members.
Of all of the generation which came out of Egypt, only two men, Joshua and Caleb, entered into and took possession of the promised land (Numbers 13:26-14:24).
All the rest, including Moses himself, died in the wilderness as a result of Caleb is, however, the son of Jephunneh, and Jephunneh is repeatedly identified as being a Kenizzite (Num 32:12; Josh 14:6, 14).
The Kenizzites were a Canaanite people who already lived in Canaan at the time that Abraham had arrived there (Gen 15:19).
Caleb and his family were among the many Semitic migrants to Egypt during this period, and yet through his faithfulness to Yahweh and his participation in the events from Passover to Pentecost, he became a part of the tribe of Judah, even one of its chief men, and an inheritor of the promises to Abraham (Josh 14:13-14; 21:43-45).
These Gentiles are not naturalized citizens or converts to the religion of Judaism, rather they, like Caleb, are part of one of the tribes of Israel, children of Abraham, and inheritors of all of those promises.
The phrases “the church replaces Israel” or “the church is a new Israel” are therefore nonsensical once the terms in which the scriptures speak is understood. The church is Israel. Specifically, the church is the assembly of Israel, God’s people, to offer worship, praise, and sacrifice to their God. It is not that God’s people are no longer an ethnic or national entity, it is rather that God’s people and inheritance were never an ethnic entity, and only ever so briefly a national one.
This is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Hosea, after Yahweh had declared Israel to be ‘not my people’ that Israel would be restored when a people which did not yet exist would be called his people while at the same time those who had been rejected were declared to be his people once again (Hos 1:10; 2:23; Rom 9:25-26).
God created a people for himself and called it Israel. This group was not a nation or an ethnicity. It was a group formed by participation in the Passover and the giving of the covenant (Pentecost). God knew that most of this group would be unfaithful, but he bore with them for a time and then scattered the unfaithful among the nations. Then when he regathered and reconstitutes Israel, he did it from the nations into which those tribes had been dispersed.
So Israel and God’s people are synonymous terms. This means that the assembly (church) today is identical to the assembly of Israel in the Old Testament. We are all, in the church, Israelites, though we are not all Judeans (Jews). But Judah/Judea was never all of Israel. It was the part from which the king (I.e. Messiah) came.”
Many Christians think Paul expects a restoration of Jews in the distant future, and some have seen the modern state of Israel as a fulfillment of Romans 9–11.
This is wrong.
As Peter Leithart, a protestant scholar, says : “The prophets of the Hebrew Bible testified that a time would come when judgment would come upon Israel after their return from exile. At this point, much of Israel would be cut off, but a remnant would be purified and preserved by the fire of judgment.
This remnant would become the basis for a new Israel, into which the nations would stream.
It is St. Paul’s understanding in the uncontroversially Pauline Epistle to the Romans that this had taken place in the coming of Christ (Rom. 11:1–24), an understanding also found in St. John’s Gospel. The Church is a new people of God, a renewed Israel, made up of the faithful remnant of Israel of the Old Covenant into which Gentiles who have come to Christ have been grafted. Those returning from the nations replace the tribes scattered to the nations so that in the end all Israel will be saved."
It’s odd to see modern evangelicals disagree with Paul and the Bible :
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, *heirs according to the promise*.”
Romans 9:6, 7 confirm this: "Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham just because they are descendants."
In John 8:39 the Jews defend themselves against Jesus' criticisms by saying, "'Abraham is our father.' Jesus said to them, 'If you were Abraham's children, you would do what Abraham did.'"
Jesus shows us that they are not Abraham's children, even though they are Jews.
Finally, we must ask how the modern state of Israel is related to Abraham or the Israelite religion. Is Israel a nation given by God, and for God ? No, Israel is one of the least religious nations on earth. Only 30% of Israelis say they are religious, THIS survey finds
If it’s all about genetics, then the Palestinians are just as likely to be related to the ancient Israelites as modern Jews, and in some cases, more so, as has been acknowledged by Jewish historians, including two of the founders of the modern state of Israel, David Ben-Gurion and Itzhak Ben-Zvi. “Jews and Arabs are all really children of Abraham," says Harry Ostrer, M.D., Director of the Human Genetics Program at New York University School of Medicine HERE, and he’s right.
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