Smoodock's Blog

While it isn’t absolutely certain that Jesus was cast out of the synagogues at this point in his ministry, it certainly seems that he was. For example, we don’t see him teaching in a synagogue after John’s death. The context of Mark’s “…he went round about the villages, teaching” (Mark 6:6b) is Jesus’ sending out his Apostles, two by two, into all the cities of Galilee to preach the Gospel (Mark 6:7, 12-13). The point is, how could Jesus have been allowed to teach in the synagogues, while any ruler or authority within the synagogue system, who made it known that he believed Jesus, was, himself, cast out (John 12:42-43)? If Jesus was an accepted rabbi, why were those who believed him punished? These things don’t make sense, unless Jesus was cast out of the synagogues by the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem very early in his public ministry.

What was the ancient Jewish culture like that rejected Jesus, and what was its origin? Most folks, today, believe Judaism is the religion of Moses, that is, that it reflects the teachings of the Old Testament, but this isn’t true. Jesus claimed that, had the religious authorities of his day believed Moses, they would have believed him (John 5:46-47). However, they didn’t and, in fact, often tried to kill Jesus (John 5:18). Although the Jewish authorities claimed Moses as their founder, they didn’t practice what he wrote down in scripture. In fact, they often sought to lessen the gravity of Moses’ teachings in an effort to please men and appear wise and helpful in their eyes (cp. Matthew 19:3, 7; 23:15-22). This is what Jesus’ Parable of the Unjust Steward is about (Luke 16:1-13).[1] The steward in the parable represented the high priest and those in authority with him. They lessened the debt the people owed God, according to the Law, in order to ingratiate themselves to the people.

In other words, Judaism of Jesus day was a manmade religion. It misappropriated Moses’ name and, according to Jesus, Judaism annulled the word of God and stole away the fruits of people’s hearts that rightfully belonged to the Lord. Instead of serving the Lord, Judaism was nothing more than the doctrines and commandments of men (Mark 7:7; cp. Isaiah 1:10-15).

What happened? How did Judaism of Jesus’ day get to be what it was? Where did it come from, and how did it begin? To begin with, almost immediately after Cyrus released about 50,000 Jews to return to their homeland in Judea and Galilee and to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem, they went astray. Twenty years later, when Nehemiah was assigned governorship of the Jews, neither the Temple nor Jerusalem had been rebuilt. It took a combination of the efforts of both Ezra, the high priest, and Nehemiah nearly 50 years after their return from captivity to get the Jews to repent (Ezra 10:1-17; Nehemiah 8:9-18). Nevertheless, in the process of time, and after the empire of Alexander the Great was divided up among his generals, the leaders of the Jews became corrupt again and sought the favor of the of Hellenist kings of Syria in such a way that the office of high priest was a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder. According to the writers of the Apocrypha, the high priests governing the nation at that time were so unimaginably corrupt that they were no high priests at all,[2] and loyalty to the Lord and duties to the Temple were neglected in favor of playing the Grecian games.[3] The corruption and rebellion was so great, according to Josephus, the Jewish historian during the first century AD, that the Lord even allowed the King of Syria to pillage the Temple and offer swine’s flesh upon the altar within the Temple compound at Jerusalem.[4]

This resulted in a Jewish revolt against Syria led by Judas Maccabeus, and the sects of the Pharisees and the Sadducees seem to have come out of that war with the King of Syria. It doesn’t seem fair to describe them as political parties like democrats and republicans in modern America. Rather, although they did desire political power, they seem to be more like religious fraternities that adhere to certain peculiar rites. Many of what is termed the people of the land, who made up the vast majority of the Jews at the time of Christ (numbering about 2 ½ to 3 million),[5] may have admired the Pharisees’ way of life, but they were hardly Pharisees, themselves, and the same could be said as it pertains to the Sadducees or any other group, such as the Essenes, the Zealots, the Scribes, the Apocalyptics etc. According to Josephus, the largest of the groups about the time of Jesus were the Pharisees with cir. 6000 members,[6] but only about half their number were the Sadducees, or 3000, according to some scholars, and the Essenes numbered about 4000.[7] The other groups numbered far less, but all were influential with the people of the land in one way or another.

My point in saying all this is, although any Jew could normally attend the synagogues, some (like publicans) weren’t welcome, and, since most synagogues were controlled by the Pharisees (cp. John 12:42-43), they more or less were the authorities, concerning how religious folks acted and what they believed about the scriptures. While certain rabbis (scribes who could be pharisaical or Sadducean) taught a small group of men (like Jesus’ Apostles), such men were more formally trained and called disciples, but the common people weren’t normally trained beyond what their parents taught them, and what they could pick up in the synagogue on the Sabbaths (i.e., those who went to synagogue).[8]

So, if Jesus were, indeed, cast out of the synagogues, the Pharisees couldn’t keep the people of the land from hearing him, and considering the size of the synagogues of Jesus’ day, it was probably best to speak to the crowds in the fields, the hills and the beaches in Palestine. Being cast out of the synagogue simply meant Jesus wasn’t teaching the official doctrine of the authorities in Jerusalem. Those authorities didn’t endorse Jesus’ Gospel, and they punished those of their number (cir. 6000) who did, but they had no real authority, concerning such things, over the greater population, commonly referred to as the people of the land.

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[1] See two earlier studies of mine in the Gospel of Luke: Who Might the Unjust Steward Be?; and What Was the Sin of the Unjust Steward?

[2] See the Apocrypha: 2Maccabees 4:13; 13:7-8.

[3] See the Apocrypha: 2Maccabees 4:7-17

[4] See Josephus; Antiquities of the Jews, 12.5.4 (248-253); and the Apocrypha: 2Maccabees 5:15-20.

[5] See Encyclopedia Biblica; volume III; Palestine, #21-population.

[6] Josephus; Antiquities of the Jews, 17.2.4 (41-42).

[7] Josephus; Antiquities of the Jews, 18.1.5 (18-20).

[8] If we consider the size of synagogues in each town, for example the Capernaum synagogue could hold a maximum of 500 people, while the one in Nazareth could hold only about 75, we have to understand that most folks didn’t attend synagogue or did so only occasionally.