But outside the Messianic movement, however, there is much ignorance about what this holiday practice really involves and what it means for the believers concerned. It easily arouses suspicions of legalism at best, backsliding into Judaism at worst. Inversely, some Evangelical circles tend to idealise the Messianic movement. They put it on a pedestal; considering it a guide that will lead the Christian Church back to its Jewish roots — notably in the areas of Sabbath and festival.
In both cases, there is a need for exact information. Our study will provide just that, as it seeks to clarify the historical context in which Messianic Jewish holiday practice came about, and what it actually involves.
Our aim is to describe its development, to analyse its different aspects, and to assess it from a missiological point of view. New titles are constantly being added to the list. This is a collateral phenomenon of Messianic Jewish holiday observance. While it is not the principal object of our investigation, we have taken it into account as a secondary field of interest. An analysis of what the Messianic Jewish practice involves will also shed light on the participation of Gentiles.
This study was originally a doctoral dissertation defended at the Evangelical Theological Faculty in Leuven, Belgium Sacred Times for Chosen People, see the bibliography. Given the interest for the subject, not only among Messianic Jews but also in Christian circles at large, I decided to prepare a revised and updated version.
The description of the history of Hebrew Christians was considerably abridged. On the other hand, I have added a new chapter dealing with the interest of the Gentile Christians in Jewish roots in general and in the Messianic practice of holidays in particular.
As I present our investigation and conclusions, it is my hope that they will contribute to the development of the Messianic Movement, its spiritual growth, its theological reflection, its unity with other members of the body of Christ, and its testimony to Israel and the nations. Its origins are often linked with the upsurge of the Evangelical youth movement in the turbulent s and s. As Ruth Fleischer rightly points out, there is an historical continuity between the current movement and preceding developments.
Certainly, during the last forty years or so, this movement has not only shown remarkable numerical growth but also manifested a concern for identity that caught the attention of both the Christian and the Jewish communities. However, this phenomenon is not as unprecedented as some observers would have it.
Rather, it is an acceleration of a process that already began about two hundred years ago, during the Emancipation. Hailed as the light that has chased the darkness of marginalisation, the Emancipation was at the same time a challenge: How to adapt to the new circumstances? What does it mean to be a Jew in a world that no longer obliges him to live in segregated communities?
To whatever extent the Jews benefited from the Emancipation, they all had to find an answer to the fundamental question: what does it mean to be a Jew in a world that has accepted us as full citizens? Are we a nation, or a religion, or a culture group, or all of that at the same time? What is precisely our Jewish identity? Do we have to maintain our distinctive identity, and if so, how should we express it? This question has preoccupied the Jewish world up till the present day.
There were various responses to the challenge posed by the Emancipation. Firstly, full assimilation into the dominant culture in society. In many cases, assimilation meant the abandonment of all religious practice, giving rise to the phenomenon of the acculturated, secularised Jew — a novelty in Jewish history!
Others assimilated to the Christian religious world. One of the results was a rising number of mixed marriages. This led to an almost equal loss of identity. Diametrically opposed to any form of assimilation stands the orthodox response. Midway between these responses was a third one, i. While these responses to the challenge of the Emancipation are generally recognised, there is yet another one that usually escapes the attention of Jewish historiography.
Nonetheless, it deserves a mention: the growing number of Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah of Israel. This response should be distinguished from the move towards Christianity for reasons of assimilation and expediency mentioned earlier. Granted, it is almost impossible to draw an exact dividing line between joining the dominant world view in a given society in order to gain acceptance on the one hand, and a real step of faith on the other; in other words, between acculturation and genuine conversion.
All that we can say is that many were sincerely convinced that Jesus is the Messiah. This was a surprising turn of events! With the obtaining of civil rights, the relation between the Church and the Jews was fundamentally changed. Gradually the ideal of the separation of throne and altar was implemented.
We could portray the relation of the Bible and the faiths that claim it as their basis by a diagram of intersecting circles. Both Judaism and Christianity overlap significantly with their Bibles, and are not thinkable without them. Yet from the Bible one could not read off either faith as we in fact encounter them.
Nor could one predict the contents of the Bible from either faith. And, conversely, there are central features in the New Testament that do not appear in the creeds. It is not that the Bible and the creeds contradict each other, simply that they have different emphases. Similarly in Judaism, central features such as dietary or purity laws are by no means absent from the Hebrew Bible, but they have nothing like the prominence there that they enjoy in Judaism today.
Nevertheless, both faiths find it hard to believe that the Bible does not in some way have a point-by-point correspondence with their religion. The Hebrew Bible consists of a collection of the highly variegated national literature of ancient Israel, written and compiled, probably, between the eighth and second centuries BCE.
There is no way that such a collection could be identical with Judaism as a worldwide religion that has flourished and developed throughout subsequent centuries, and is still developing today. The New Testament is a first- and second-century CE compendium of writings from an originally Jewish, but later predominantly Gentile, sect in the eastern Mediterranean—one that evolved into one of the most successful faiths in the world.
Christians, like Jews, have always held steadfastly to their Scriptures; yet, especially through contact with philosophy, they have developed ideas that would have surprised the New Testament writers. The Bible stands at the beginning of two traditions of faith, without being identical with either as they now are. Contact us at letters time. So now we have a request.
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