More Jews, Greeks, and Gentiles
Ephraim had been in Exile for over a hundred years when a prophet named Jeremiah began to tell the Jews that unless they turned back to the Torah, they too would be taken into exile. However, rather than being taken to Assyria (as Ephraim had), they would be taken to a place called Babylon.
Judah would be in their Exile for seventy years, after which time YHWH would bring them back home:
For thus says YHWH: “After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you, and perform My good Word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. [Jeremiah 29:10]
The Babylonian Exile differed from the bondage Israel had suffered in Egypt. Rather than being taken slaves, the Jews were free to trade, own businesses, and even to intermarry. Since the Babylonian economy was strong and their ‘captivity’ was relatively luxurious compared to their former life in Israel, most of the Jews forgot all about their Inheritance, and began thinking of themselves only as Babylonians.
Considering the relative ease of life in Babylon, one had to be relatively committed to the Torah and the Inheritance, to want to come back to the Land. To go back to a Land that lay in ruins was not an easy thing; and the hardy remnant that did decide to return must have known that they would face attacks by the surrounding peoples:
7 Now it happened, when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites heard that the walls of Jerusalem were being restored and the gaps were beginning to be closed, that they became very angry, 8 and all of them conspired together to come and attack Jerusalem…. [Nehemiah 4:7-8]
Understand what happened: At the end of three or four generations in Exile, the Jews’ grandchildren were given a choice. Those who cared deeply about their Inheritance could forsake their relative comfort in Babylon and return to the Land of Israel, where they would have to re-assume the Levitical Law, and the tithe. It would be much harder than staying in Babylon, but their children would inherit the Land of Israel and four-hundred-eighty-three years later, their children’s children would get to see the Messiah:
25 "Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. The street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times. [Daniel 9:25]
History records for us that Artaxerxes, King of Babylon, sent forth the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem in 457 BCE. From that time, there was to be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks until Messiah the Prince. Seven weeks plus sixty-two weeks makes for sixty-nine prophetic weeks.
Sixty-nine prophetic ‘weeks’ of years is equal to sixty-nine ‘weeks’ times seven prophetic days in each week. Sixty-nine times seven, then, equals four-hundred-eighty-three literal earth years.
When we add four-hundred-eighty-three literal earth years to 457 BCE, we arrive at 26 CE, which is the year that Yeshua began His ministry. No other historical personage fulfills this requirement; and therefore only Yeshua can be the Messiah.
The rabbis also knew the Messiah had to arrive in or about 26 CE, which is not only why the Pharisees wanted to know if John the Baptist was the Messiah (see John One), but it was also the reason many of the Jews ever left their relatively luxurious Exile to Babylon in the first place: This hardy remnant wanted their children to see the long-awaited Messiah, and to have a continuing part in the Israelite Inheritance.
This, however, hardly meant that the ten percent of Judah which returned to the Land was all just one big happy group of faithful Torah seekers. To the contrary; while there were some dedicated believers, rabbis and even prophets (such as Zechariah and Haggai, re: Ezra 5:1), many of the returnees had taken foreign wives who had never converted to the Israelite faith; and these practiced idol worship. Things were so bad that the leaders were “foremost in this trespass.”
1 When these things were done, the leaders came to me, saying, "The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, with respect to the abominations of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.
2 For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, so that the set-apart seed is mixed with the peoples of those lands. Indeed, the hand of the leaders and rulers has been foremost in this trespass!"
[Ezra 9:1-2]
Ezra and Nehemiah tried to get the people to turn back to the Torah, but only with relative success. While some of the people did repent and turn back, others never did. This caused an identity problem.
The Torah specifies that those who despise the Covenant are to be cut off from the Nation of Israel:
31 Because he has despised the word of YHWH, and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt shall be upon him. [Numbers 15:31]
Despite how the Torah reads, the religiously devout did not really want to ‘cut off’ (i.e. kill) those Jews who did not keep the full Torah. In the first place, the marginally-observant were far more numerous than the devout. And, in the second place, the rabbis hoped that when the Messiah finally did arrive (in 26 CE) that He would turn everyone back to Phariseeism.
However, since Numbers Fifteen did indicate that those who despised the Torah were to be cut off from the Nation, the rabbis could not call the partially-observant ‘Jews’; nor could they call them Gentiles (as they had called Ephraim), since the partly-observant were still readily identifiable as Israelites.
The rabbis needed to come up with some other name; and therefore they decided that since these Hellenized Jews kept the customs and traditions of the other nations, that they should be called Hellenized (or Greek) Jews. This would indicate that while they were still readily identifiable as being of Jewish descent, they were no longer part of the Nation.
Remembering also that the terms (Assyrian) Dispersion and (Babylonian) Exile are frequently (albeit incorrectly) used as synonyms, now we can understand why the (devout) Jews wondered why Yeshua said that where He went, the rabbis would not find Him. Did this Messiah intend to teach amongst those in the Exile, and regather them to the Nation in that way?
35 Then the Jews said among themselves, "Where does He intend to go that we shall not find Him? Does He intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks?
[Yochanan (John) 7:35]
The King James, however, renders this word ‘Greeks’ as ‘Gentiles’:
35 Then said the Jews among themselves, whither will He go that we shall not find Him? Will He go unto the Dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles?
[Yochanan (John) 7:35, KJV]
While these two differing translations seem to present an objection to the objective Western mind, this is not really a problem for the (religious) Jew, because the word ‘Gentile’ here is Strong’s #1672, a ‘Hellen’:
NT: 1672 Hellen; a Hellen (Grecian) or inhabitant of Hellas; by extension a Greek-speaking person, especially a non-Jew: (KJV - Gentile, Greek).
If we want to understand what Scripture really says, we must always remember that Scripture was not written by objective Western scholars, but by subjective religious Jews. Since it was written by subjective religious Jews, Scripture is full of slang terminology.
In Acts Chapter Six, then, we read there were two subsets within the first century Body: The Hebrews, and the Hellenists:
1 Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. [Acts 6:1, NKJV]
Remembering that the Good News was not taken to non-Jews until Acts Chapter Ten (four full chapters later), we can see that the first group, the Hebrews, must have been a reference to the Nazarenes. The latter group must have been a reference to the Christians before the term Christian was first used, in Acts Chapter Eleven.