“For They Will Put You out of Their Synagogues” (Jn. 16:2)

“For They Will Put You out of Their Synagogues” (Jn. 16:2)
By
James Scott Trimm

Our Messiah Yeshua prophesied saying:

1 These things I have spoken to you, that you not be offended,
2 For they will put you out of their synagogues, And the hour will come, when anyone who kills you, will think that he offers an offering to Eloah.
3 And these things they will do, because they do not know either My Father or Me.
4 These things I have spoken to you, that when their time has come, you might remember
(Yochanan (John) 16:1-4 HRV)

These words of Yeshua were fulfilled around 90 CE when Samuel the Lesser was commissioned to add what came to be called the Birkat haMinim to the Eighteen Benedictions of the Amidah. The Talmud records the event this way:

Our Rabbis taught: Simeon ha-Pakuli arranged the eighteen benedictions in order before Rabban Gamaliel in Jabneh. Said Rabban Gamaliel to the Sages: "Can any one among you frame a benediction relating to the Minim?" Samuel the Lesser arose and composed it.
(b.Berakot 29a)

The fourth centaury “Church Father” Epiphanius speaks of this addition to the Amidah in his description of the ancient sect of the Nazarenes, saying:

Not only do Jewish people have a hatred of them; they even stand up at dawn, at midday, and toward evening, three times a day when they recite their prayers in the synagogues, and curse and anathemize them. Three times a day they say, "God curse the Nazarenes." For they harbor an extra grudge against them, if you please, because despite their Jewishness, they proclaim that Yeshua is the Messiah...
(Epiphanius Panarion 29)

The Birkat haMinim as it appears today reads:

And for slanderers let there be no hope, and let all wickedness perish as in a moment; let all thine enemies be speedily cut off, and the dominion of arrogance do you uproot and crush, cast down and humble speedily in our days. Blessed are you, O L-rd, who breakest the enemies and humbles the arrogant.

However an old copy of the Birkat haMinim found at the Cairo Genizah reads:

For the renegades let there be no hope, and may the arrogant kingdom soon be rooted out in our days, and the Nazarenes and the Minim perish as in a moment and be blotted out from the book of life and with the righteous may they not be inscribed. Blessed are you, O L-rd, who humbles the arrogant.

This benediction was in the form of a curse on the Nazarenes, a curse which would have the designed effect of casting Nazarenes out of the Pharisaic/Rabbinic synagogues (Jn. 16:2) since Nazarenes who attended their synagogues would have been expected to recite a curse upon themselves.

From this time forward, whatever overlap their may have been between the Pharisaic/Rabbinic and Nazarene communities was totally severed, thus fulfilling Yeshua’s prophecy that they (Rabbinic Jews) would put the Nazarenes out of their synagogues.

Today we are seeking to put Yeshua back into the context of first century Judaism. Nazarene Judaism is a spiritual renascence, a revival, a return to the pure faith of first century Nazarenes. A return to the Tanak and to the root of the olive tree (Rom. 11).

As the prophet Jeremiah tells us:

Thus says YHWH, "Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, Where the good way is, and walk in it: And you shall find rest for your souls...."
(Jer. 6:16)