2,000 Years of Christ's Power Vol. 1: The Age of the Early Church Fathers

by Nick R. Needham

The Jewish War had a number of far-reaching consequences: The fall of Jerusalem meant that both Judaism and the Jesus movement lost their spiritual home. Jerusalem, once the “mother church” of apostolic Christianity, ceased to have any importance in the life of the early Church for the next 300 years. This geographical separation of the Jesus movement from its Palestinian roots quickened the Church’s drift away from a Jewish to a Gentile membership. The refusal of Jewish Palestinian Christians to help their fellow Jews in the revolt against Rome meant that they were regarded as traitors in Jewish eyes. This helped to widen the gap between the Christian faith and the Jewish people. The crushing of the Jewish Revolt by Rome meant that the Pharisees became the controlling force within Judaism. The failure of the great Zealot rebellion destroyed the influence of the Zealots as a national party. The fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple removed the power-base of the priestly, aristocratic Sadducees. The War also wiped out the Essenes, because they too had joined in the revolt against Rome; their community at Qumran (the one we know most about) was destroyed by the Romans in AD 68. So only the Pharisees were left to offer spiritual leadership to the Jewish people and guide their future; and the Pharisees had always been the most determined Jewish enemies of Jesus and His followers. Gathering together after the War in the city of Jamnia (or in Hebrew, Jabneh) on the...