10 Striking Parallels between the Apostles and the Rabbis
By: Intellectual Conservatism
Tags: Religion, Theology, New Testament, Judaism, Catholicism

I have been doing research into the Semitic origins of New Testament ecclesial structures. My research, even in its primordial phase, propelled me towards Catholicism from my Protestant Baptist roots. Here, I’ve compiled ten parallels that indicate Jesus and the apostles modelled the Church after the courts of Moses, making the Apostles a new Rabbinic authority that can declare halakha or the way in which a Christian ought to live and believe — with the backing of heaven or God Himself.

Early and Explicit Self-Identification with the Sanhedrin: Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, writing to the Trallians around 98–117 AD, “In like manner, let all reverence the deacons as an appointment of Jesus Christ, and the bishop as Jesus Christ, who is the Son of the Father, and the presbyters as the sanhedrim of God, and assembly of the apostles. Apart from these, there is no Church.”[1] Notice: Ignatius calls the presbyters the Sanhedrin of God. This quote, especially so early in the history of the Church and the living memory, shows that despite the parting of ways between Christians and Jews after the destruction of the Temple (70 AD) the earliest Christians who knew the apostles nonetheless viewed themselves as participating in or appropriating the Jewish institutions of their day. This favors the hypothesis that the Church is an institutional reality. The office of presbyter was also an office in the Sanhedrin: The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, Edited by John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow, William B. Eerdmans Publishing company: “The word presbyterion refers to a council of elders, whether the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem (Luke 22:66; Acts 22:5), or a council of Christian leaders (1 Tim. 4:14; Ignatius, Eph. 2:2; 4:1; Magn. 2:1; 13:1; Trall. 2:2; 7:2; Phld. 4:1)…”[2] This verbal resemblance is interesting, especially in light of Ignatius identifying the Church as having the ‘Sanhedrin of God’, containing a council of elders as did the Sanhedrin. Both the successors of the apostles and the Pharisees, from their binding and loosing power, issued anathemas: The 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia on binding and loosing, “This does not mean that, as the learned men, [the Pharisees] merely decided what, according to the Law, was forbidden or allowed, but that they possessed and exercised the power of tying or untying a thing by the spell of their divine authority, just as they could, by the power vested in them, pronounce and revoke an anathema upon a person.”[3] Jesus knowingly used the Rabbinic phraseology of His day to indicate the kind of power He was giving to His apostles. The power to bind and loose bestowed upon the apostles therefore includes the power to issue anathemas. This is in keeping with the disciplinary function of the Rabbis from their binding and loosing. In my survey of the literature, not a single academic source denies that “binding and loosing” at least encapsulates the legislative and judicial or disciplinary functions of the Rabbinic office. There is some question on whether or not the ministry of exorcism is included under these terms, as Jewish tradition entertains that Abraham had the power to bind (asar) demons if I recall properly. The Rabbis, the apostles, and their successors used their binding and loosing power to excommunicate heretics: Keener, Davies and Allison cite b. mo’ed qan 16a as a Rabbinic example.[4] In my email correspondence with Craig Keener, he’s also mentioned that the “whatever” of “whatever you bind and loose” can cover both persons and doctrines. The New Testament mentions excommunication in at least two contexts Matthew 18:17 (… and if he refuses to listen even to the church, he is to be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector), and Titus 3:10 (reject a divisive [hairetikon] man).[5] Some might object that Matthew 18:17 doesn’t concern doctrine but morals or misconduct, exclusively interpersonal disputes, particularly since the sin is directed at a brother. In Judaism, the defiance of doctrine and especially disobedience to the authorities God instituted to interpret the Torah were also considered a sin meriting death (Deut. 17:12–13). A brother could sin against another by accusing him of being a heretic, and so the Church would necessarily need jurisdiction on doctrine — which in fact happened in later Christian centuries and even preceding the council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 between the quarreling Jewish and Gentile brethren. Both the Pharisees and the disciples claim teaching authority from Moses, the New Moses for the apostles. Moses states in Deut. 18:15 that a Prophet like him will arise from Israel and must be obeyed. Jesus in the New Testament typologically parallels Moses in many respects in fulfillment of this prophecy. St. Peter similarly emphasizes this parallel in Acts 3:22–23, thereby fulfilling even the Protestant maxim that “scripture interpret scripture”. Jesus is the new Moses. The Pharisees likewise claimed to be the successors of Moses by sitting on his seat (Matthew 23:2–3). Both the Rabbis and the apostolic successors claimed to rule with the authority of their founder: Seventh Council of Carthage (256 AD): “The words of our Lord Jesus Christ are plain that He sent His apostles and gave to them alone the power that had been given to Him by His Father. And we have succeeded to them, governing the Lord’s church with the same power.”[6] Babylonian Talmud Rosh-Hashanah 25a, “If we call in question [the decisions of] Rabban Gamaliel, we must call into question the decisions of every Beth Din which has existed since the days of Moses up to the present time. For it says, then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the elders of Israel (Ex. 24:9). Why were not the name of the elders mentioned? To show that every group of three which has acted as a Beth Din over Israel is on a level with the Beth Din of Moses.”[7] These texts reveal that both authorities claimed to rule with the authority of their founder. The Rabbis used Deut. 17:9 to justify their enduring authority from the courts of Moses to even after the destruction of the temple (“Go to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office at that time. Inquire of them and they will give you the verdict”). Both claim the power to bind and loose. (See Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews wherein he explicitly says that the Pharisees have the power to bind and loose for they “became the administrators of all public affairs so as to be empowered to banish and readmit whom they pleased, as well as to loose and to bind.”); See Matthew 16:19; 18:18. Both used the Laying on of hands for Ordination. The laying of hands for ordination was practiced in the New Testament (Acts 6:3–6; 13:2–3; 1 Tim. 4:14). Alfred Edersheim in The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah writes: “The Judges of all these Courts [the Great Sanhedrin and lower tribunals] were equally set apart by ordination (Semikhah), originally that of the laying on of hands. Ordination was conferred by three, of whom one at least must have been himself ordained, and able to trace up his ordination through Joshua to Moses (Sanh. 2a; Maim. Sanh. 4.1–3).” Both the Pharisees and the apostolic successors kept record of ordinal succession back to Moses (or the new Moses). See Edersheim’s quote and this Oxford Reference. I recently talked to a New Testament scholar who was also aware of this similitude between the Apostles and Rabbis and was surprised that no one else was emphasizing it more. Irenaeus in Against Heresies Bk. 4. Ch. 26 (180 AD — still within living memory of the apostles) writes, “Therefore it is necessary to obey the elders who are in the Church; those who — as I have shown — possess the succession from the apostles. [They], together with the succession of the episcopate [i.e., the bishops], have received the certain gift of truth, according to the good pleasure of the Father. And [it is necessary] to hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession, and assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever. [Consider them] either as heretics of perverse minds, or as schismatics puffed up and self-pleasing, or again as hypocrites, acting this way for the sake of money and pride. For all these have fallen from the truth.” Both the apostles and the High Court claimed to have the Backing of Heaven. The future passive (“whatever you bind on earth, shall have been bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven”) of Matthew 16:19; 18:18 implies that God is reassuring Peter and the apostles that (1) whatever they declare halakha shall have already been declared halakha by God, meaning that (2) they are acting as God’s agents and not alone. R.T. France’s NICNT Gospel of Matthew Commentary supports this thesis, as these Matthean passages imply “divine guidance to enable Peter to decide in accordance with God’s already determined purpose.” Charles Talbert in his 2010 commentary on Matthew notes, “The translation will have been bound/loosed in heaven represents in Greek a periphrastic future perfect passive. Traditionally this has been interpreted to mean not that heaven ratifies Peter’s judgment but that Peter’s judgment reflects what God has already determined (Gundry 1982, 335; Chamberlain 1957, 80).”Craig S. Keener’s 2014 IVP New Testament Background commentary, “Many Jewish people felt that the Jewish high court acted on the authority of God’s tribunal in heaven, in a sense ratifying its decrees.”[8] In his 2009 Socio-rhetorical commentary on Matthew, Keener cites numerous Jewish texts where we find “the rabbinic idea in which God ratifies the decrees of the earthly Beth Din [or Rabbinic Court] — Pesiq. Rabbah Kah. 15:3; 23:4; p. Rosh Hash. 1:3… m. Rosh Hash. 3:1; t. Rosh Hash 1:18; p. Rosh Hash 3:1…”[9] Here is a clear example of heaven backing the rulings of the earthly courts in the Babylonian Talmud Makkot 11b: “Three rulings were made by the earthly court, and the court on high concurred with what they had done.”[10]

I submit that these ten parallels are not mere coincidences but evidence that the Early Church consciously modelled itself after the Rabbinic courts of their day not in departure from Christ but by His very design.

For it was prophesized in Isaiah 1:26–27 that the courts of Moses would be rebuilt, and it was Jewish tradition that asserted that this would happen at the coming of the Messiah and when the Third Temple would be built.

“He will reestablish the Sanhedrin, the religious supreme court and legislature of the Jewish people. This is a necessary condition for the rebuilding of the Third Temple, as it is written, ‘I will restore your judges as at first, and your counselors as in the beginning; afterward, you will be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and those who return to her, with righteousness’ (Isaiah 1:26–27). Such a Sanhedrin would also be able to formally recognize the Messiah as king of Israel.”[11]

Regardless of whether or not there are other possible interpretations of these parallels, the force of probability is in favor of the conclusion that Jesus did indeed use His messianic authority to build a Church that can with heavenly power declare the halakha and that only those with ordination back to the New Moses can claim this power. Michael Berger writes of the distinct authority the Rabbis with succession back to Moses possessed, “Those without it [ordination tracing back to Moses], even if objectively quite erudite, are simply not authorized in the same way as the ordained scholar.”[12]